DEPUTATION TO THE RIGHT HON. T. M'KINNON WOOD. J 



part of it, and although no one can help recognising that a large 

 proportion of it — moss lands and anything over, at that latitude, 

 800 feet — is quite unsuitable for forestry, or for any other 

 purpose except game, still there does exist in that area con- 

 siderable tracts where in some places trees are already growing 

 vigorously, and in others I am sure that plantations would 

 thrive. I would suggest that a very careful survey of the 

 ground should be made to find out what portion is suitable for 

 forestry. 



" I have no doubt that you will meet in this country with a 

 large body of public opinion adverse to forestry. We agricul- 

 turists are apt to look askance upon a crop, the rotation of which 

 exceeds the span of a generation, and, indeed, in the case of some 

 hardwoods, two or three generations — our imaginations are apt 

 to be staggered by that. 



"In view of the enormous importation of timber in this 

 country, amounting to an annual value of over 26 millions, I 

 submit it is not unreasonable that we should ask the Govern- 

 ment to take into consideration such measures as would enable 

 some part of that great industry to be brought to the doors of 

 our own people, and so, with its subsidiary industries, to help to 

 arrest the deplorable rural depopulation." 



Mr Adam Spiers said : — " From the timber merchants' point of 

 view, we find each year our supplies from the foreigner decreasing 

 and the cost enormously increasing, and the supplies from our 

 own country are very limited indeed. I am under the impression 

 that we have not given the attention to the cultivation of hard- 

 woods in the past that we might have done, or ought to have 

 done, because we have no tree that we can get from foreign 

 countries to take the place of many that grow so well in our own 

 country, particularly ash, and the same thing applies to oak, 

 elm and hickory. 



" When we do set about demonstrations, I hope that we will 

 not lose sight of the cultivation of hardwoods to a very much 

 larger extent than we are doing at the moment, because in all' 

 the countries we have visited we have come across none that can 

 grow a larger variety of hardwoods, and of equal quality to those 

 grown in our own country." 



Mr M'Kinnon Wood said: — "Mr Spiers says that we can 

 cultivate hardwoods in Scotland profitably, and of the best 

 quality that the trade would require. I should like some opinion^ 



