128 TRANSACTIONS OF KOVAL SCOTTISH ARBORICUI.TURAL SOCIETY. 



Ride (1901), articles on forestry in the Victoria History of the 

 Counties of England (1903-1907), The Forester: a Practical 

 Treatise on British Forestry and Arboriculture (1905), Our 

 Forests and Woodlands, second edition (1908), and Tlie Elements 

 of British Forestry (191 1). His was, however, a "cry in the 

 wilderness." For long he met with little support. Nowadays, 

 when the appreciation of timber is making itself felt, when the 

 politician has found in forestry an aid to his cry of "back to 

 the land," and when development schemes and the foundation 

 of professorships and lectureships and Schools of Forestry are 

 attracting attention, we realise that the importance of the timber 

 question is being recognised. To Dr Nisbet we owe the 

 awakening. There was a time, on the retirement of Dr 

 Somerville from the Lectureship on Forestry in the University 

 of Edinburgh, when, had Dr Nisbet been within hail, he might 

 have been successor. Later, after his retirement from India, he 

 became Professor of Forestry in the West of Scotland Agri- 

 cultural College, retiring in 19 12, when he joined the Board 

 of Agriculture for Scotland as its Chief Forestry Adviser. To 

 this Board his death brings a heavy loss. Dr Nisbet's long 

 and active interest in and association with forestry gave him a 

 broad outlook on all matters pertaining to the subject, and all 

 the more important Government commissions and committees 

 on forestry which have sat within recent years have benefited by 

 his wise and judicious counsel. 



Dr Nisbet was for long closely associated with the work 

 of the Royal Scottish Arboricultural Society, and acted for 

 several years as Hon. Editor of its Transaction's. He also 

 contributed many original articles of great value to the pages of 

 that journal. On the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee cele- 

 brations of the Society, Dr Nisbet was singled out, along with 

 Sir Ronald Munro Ferguson and a number of distinguished 

 British and foreign foresters, to receive the Honorary Member- 

 ship of the Society, which is the highest honour it has to bestow. 

 On that occasion the President (Captain Stirling) said, in reference 

 to him : — " The last name, but by no means the least on the 

 list, is that of Dr John Nisbet, Forestry Adviser to the Board of 

 Agriculture for Scotland, who, I think, by the very able books he 

 has written on the subject, was the first to arouse any very 

 widespread interest in scientific silviculture in Scotland." 



