14 



I make bold to say that the Society could not have 

 taken a wiser course or a more satisfactory way of marking 

 the attainment of the sixtieth year of its existence. Those 

 who, like myself, had the honour of meeting the foreign 

 representatives who came to this country on the invitation 

 of the Society, presented through His Majesty's Government, I 

 am sure look back with great pleasure on that visit. And we 

 felt all the time more than strengthened in the views which 

 we had put forward with regard to the suitability of our country 

 for afforestation. We were told sometimes inside this Society, 

 more often outside of it, that our ideas were much too rosy as to 

 the prospects of profitable afforestation in this country. What 

 we learned from our foreign friends, whose opinions cannot be 

 gainsaid, as they represent much larger forestry organisations 

 than we can possibly have in this country — all were men whose 

 words carry weight throughout Europe — was that we had not 

 been rosy enough in our prophecies. They said we had 

 boundless possibilities. All we wanted to do was to take 

 advantage of them. It is very pleasant, looking back on that 

 time, to feel that by far the larger number of those who then 

 honoured us with their presence are now on our side in this 

 disastrous war which has been forced upon us. I am sure we 

 have not got very much further, notwithstanding all the 

 ■encouragement we have received in words, with what we as a 

 Society are always pressing for — the development of afforestation 

 in Scotland. The Society stands very much where it was. It 

 will continue to press with all the power which it can use for 

 the necessary preliminaries to the economic development of 

 forestry in Scotland. We laid down some number of years ago 

 what we thought was necessary — a demonstration area and a 

 survey of the country. Unfortunately we have as yet got 

 neither the one nor the other, but they are absolutely essential, 

 and I think it is high time they were put into operation. I am 

 not one of those who wish in any way to limit our patriotism to 

 Scotland only, or to say that we should have in Scotland more 

 than our fair share, or even our fair share, of what is going for 

 the development of the country at large. But I am perfectly 

 certain I am justified in saying this — that Scotland contains very 

 much more land which is likely to be useful for the purpose of 

 afforestation than does the country farther south. And yet we 

 see that the expenditure made in England is considerably larger 

 than the expenditure made in this country. Looking over some 



