126 TRANSACnONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



profitably. The whole point which I wish to bring before you is 

 that we must look at these matters from the point of view of 

 things being profitably employed. It is no use keeping a horse 

 at a loss ; it is no use cultivating crops at a loss. What we want 

 to do is to cultivate the ground so that it may be a profit to 

 everybody concerned. Looking to the subsidiary industries 

 which are bound to grow up, I do not hesitate to say that it can 

 be so arranged that agriculture can be helped, and helped in no 

 small degree, by the forestry which we hope will become one 

 of the largest industries in this country. 



" I do not wish to take up your time much longer because 

 there are many others here who are equally well qualified to 

 speak on this important subject. There is only one thing I 

 would like to say and it is this — we must have forestry, 

 in order to be profitable, in order to institute small hold- 

 ings, in order to re-people many parts which are now too 

 sparsely inhabited, we must have forestry upon a definite 

 basis, we must have it continuous. I have heard it said in 

 certain places that in very many of the planting operations a 

 great deal of the labour employed was local, but notwithstanding 

 this the population has gone down and that people are emigrat- 

 ing, people are going away — how are you therefore going to 

 improve matters by forestry ? I do not think that is the case 

 where there has been a continuous system of forestry carried on 

 not for five or ten years, but under a definite scheme which is 

 intended to last for all time. That is what we want to see, and 

 that is what we must have. The labour does not only take 

 place in the planting ; labour is wanted in the thinning, labour 

 is wanted in the felling, and in the transport in the future. If 

 you have a continuous scheme there will not be the complaint 

 that people go away. They will look to the future and the 

 wages that will some day come to them from labour in another 

 form, while the crop is maturing. I do not think that it is going 

 too far to say that the experiment has never been thoroughly 

 tried in this country. We hope to see it tried, and I put it 

 before you to-day as a reason why we should go forward. 



" I have put a few things before you to show, as far as I can, 

 that so far as I can see, so far from being hindersome, forestry will 

 be helpful to agriculture. That is my belief, and that I beKeve 

 is the wish of many people here. I put the matter before you 

 to-day, and I would only ask in having opened this discussion. 



