2 14 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTLK AL SOCIETY. 



though regretfully, to limit the number of members to forty. To 

 some extent this was necessitated by the difficulty of housing 

 and moving a larger number, but the main reason for this 

 limitation was that for general discussions, especially during 

 excursions, a greater crowd would become unwieldy, and that 

 thereby many valuable opinions and expressions of practical 

 men might be lost. 



On Monday, the loth July 1911, Dr MoUer, the present 

 Director of the Academy, had the privilege of greeting the 

 assembly with a rousing speech. He told the members, most 

 of whom were old students of Eberswalde, that the aim of the 

 conference was not to overwhelm them during the week with 

 lectures and experimental scientific shows, but to lay the 

 foundations of a bridge between science and practice, between 

 research and proofs obtained in actual forest work, in fact to 

 realise the ideal longings of Du Hamel du Alonceaux, the 

 original founder of forestry as a science. 



"It is undeniable," he continued, "that a forester with a 

 minimum of exact scientific knowledge, may be an excellent 

 administrator of his division if he has energy, common sense, 

 a love for his work, and critically sifted experience. The scientific 

 attainments of a forester cannot, therefore, be measured with 

 safety by the cultural conditions of his forest, their silvicultural 

 treatment or their final net yield. Nevertheless there is room 

 for improvement which, it is hoped, will gradually take place 

 and grow by means of a free exchange of opinions, in the 

 course of these progressive conferences. A scientific solution 

 of the various questions which are raised year after year, definite 

 in the sense of a solution of a mathematical problem, cannot 

 be expected in measurable time ; but one has only to remember 

 the progress that has been made in the knowledge of forest 

 soils, a .science which in its present sense was non-existent 

 twenty years ago, to feel the necessity of unremitting united 

 attempts in that direction. 



" A great point has been gained in inducing men of experience 

 and practice to enter the abode of our scientific work, our 

 laboratories, our experimental gardens and forests, to examine 

 and criticise our work and to carry away with them all that 

 may seem to them to be useful in practice. 



" Unlimited criticism by the members of the conference of all 

 we have done and are doing is cordially invited, for it is only by 



