THE society's ANNUAL MEETING. 8 1 



Sir John Stirling-Maxwell. — " We have been at war eighteen 

 months, and the men we need were gone before forestry 

 was made a reserved occupation, that is the trouble. Mr 

 Sutherland, who speaks from the official standpoint, perhaps 

 cannot speak as freely as I can, but I am quite satisfied that the 

 Government are now doing everything that they possibly can to 

 ensure that there should be more labour at the disposal of 

 those who are cutting wood, but their position is very difficult, 

 and I hope as time goes on military labour will be organised for 

 this purpose. This seems the only hopeful direction in which 

 any progress will be made, and it looks as if the time would 

 come very soon, as I ventured to point out many months ago in 

 the Scofs>nan, when the Government would have to choose 

 between having that wood or having certain soldiers capable 

 of bringing the wood in." 



Mr Charles Robertson, Forester, Colstoun, Haddington. 

 — "There are many men employed by proprietors who are 

 equally able and capable of doing timber merchants' work. If 

 those men happen to be employed on an estate rather than by a 

 timber merchant, they will not so readily get exemption." 



Sir John Dewar. — " Yes, sir, they will." 



Mr Lumsden. — " Might I suggest that some representation 

 be made ? " 



The Chairman. — " I think that some representation of the 

 kind has already been made by the Council to the Board of 

 Agriculture, and we have received assurances that the matter 

 is being very carefully attended to." 



Mr A. D. Richardson. — " There is one aspect of the question 

 that has not been touched on, and that is the production of 

 wood-pulp. That is a very important industry in some of the 

 Continental countries, and also in North America. I do not 

 see why a great amount of wood-pulp used in this country 

 should not be produced here. At present there is to be re- 

 striction, and we are going to have fewer papers to read 

 shortly, because newspapers and literature of that sort are 

 all produced on paper made from wood-pulp. Now Mr Cadell 

 referred to the growing of black Italian poplar. Every one 

 knows that it is a very rapid growing tree. A very large 

 proportion of the wood-pulp in North America is produced from 

 American 'cotton wood,' which is one of the parents of that 

 tree. There are even faster growing trees then the black Italian 



