THE CONFERENCE AND DINNER. 209 



advance the business. We do not, however, have those 

 pleasant tite-a-tetes with those in the high places that you have, 

 although I recollect in my earlier association with this Society, 

 that an opportunity of interviewing the various Presidents of the 

 Board of Agriculture as they used to come north to the Annual 

 Autumn Conferences, was never missed. How early these inter- 

 views began I do not know, but I have very distinct recollections 

 of taking part in deputations that waited on Mr Chaplin, to begin 

 with, and Mr Long, and later on Lord Onslow was not allowed 

 to escape, and possibly Sir Ailwyn Fellowes, but that is more 

 recent history, in which I did not participate. These Annual 

 Meetings with the Presidents became almost monotonous in 

 their similarity. We met one of these Presidents one year, and 

 he came back the next, then the next, and then a new President 

 came on, and we were enthusiastic to see that he was impressed. 

 He received us as a new man seeking new ideas receives people, 

 and he appeared to be interested, and I remember well how our 

 hearts rose when, at the end of an interview, he would say, ' Now, 

 then, gentlemen, you will kindly put all that in writing and send 

 it to me.' In my innocence, I imagined getting things on 

 paper, and getting them sent by request, was almost a certain 

 way of securing a thing. I have grown older and wiser 

 since those days, and I now know these requests are very much 

 the same as those we hear of to-day in connection with Royal 

 Commissions, Departmental Committees, etc., which are just 

 a delicate way of giving a decent burial. These meetings took 

 place with the Presidents of the Agricultural Board in London, 

 and I suppose our importunity began to tell in the end, because, 

 as you know, the Presidents of the Board of Agriculture 

 escaped finally by cutting Scotland adrift from the English 

 Board. Whether the importunity of the Royal Scottish 

 Arboricultural Society had anything to do with the severance of 

 that Board I know not, but at anyrate it effected a means of 

 escape for the Presidents of the Board of Agriculture, who are 

 no longer button-holed, because the necessity of coming to 

 Scotland is past. Now, the toast I have the honour of proposing 

 is, of course, the health of the Royal Scottish Arboricultural 

 Society, and when one talks of health, one thinks of diagnosis and 

 one asks oneself whether in effect there is any great necessity 

 to inquiry into the health of this old and honourable Society. 

 I have not even had time to get figures from Mr Galloway, but. 



