4 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



promised in the event of the Bill becoming law, to establish, 

 as an integral part of the Board of Agriculture for Scotland, a 

 Department of Forestry for Scotland. 



"This undertaking was welcomed by the Society — the only 

 stipulation made by them was that the Department should be 

 representative of those interested in silviculture, and that it 

 should be endowed with a reasonable amount of independence 

 and responsibility. A further letter from the Council to Lord 

 Pentland defined their views on the constitution of the proposed 

 Department. 



"The circumstances under which Lord Pentland's promise of 

 a Department came to be unfulfilled are better known to you, 

 Sir, than they can be to us. We saw with deep disappointment 

 the substitution of a Commissioner of Small Holdings with 

 temporary charge of forestry for the promised Department — and 

 we have had reason to regret the change. 



" We recognise that an admirable appointment was made in 

 the person of Mr Sutherland to the charge of the forestry side of 

 the Board's work. His special knowledge of forestry as well as 

 of all the economic and social conditions of the West Highlands 

 made him particularly well fitted for the post. In what we have 

 to say, it must be clearly understood that no single word of 

 criticism is directed against Mr Sutherland or against his con- 

 ception of his duties. We consider that a fatal mistake was 

 made in tacking on forestry to his other duties as Commissioner 

 for Small Holdings. This may, perhaps, seem a strange com- 

 plaint in the face of what we shall have to say as to the 

 intimate connection which should exist between afforestation 

 and small holdings, but we cannot but feel that, through no 

 fault of Mr Sutherland's, the small holdings side of his work has 

 occupied his time and energy to the exclusion of forestry, and 

 that the association of forestry with small holdings has, hitherto^ 

 been no part of the official policy of the Board of Agriculture. 



"To resume the sequence of events: — In June 19 12 a 

 deputation of the Council waited on the Chairman of the Board 

 of Agriculture for Scotland, to represent the needs of forestry 

 and to ask that a share of the Board's grant should be spent on 

 it. The reply received was that no part of the Board's grant 

 could be expended on forestry, as it was already earmarked. 



" I pass from an episode which caused us deep disappointment 

 to another which gave us pleasure — the presence of Mr Suther- 



