AUGUST 207 



in larch and Scots fir must be reckoned, not at forty, but 

 at eighty years. This offer was estimated to be equal to 

 200 per acre, or 1600 for the 1680 Douglas firs stand- 

 ing on the eight acres. It was declined, and the trees are 

 still growing vigorously; an incentive, surely, to both 

 the state and to private landowners to develop the 

 magnificent resources of their woodlands. 



As to the danger to the picturesque, let no man doubt 

 the beauty of rightly-ordered woodland. If he does so, let 

 him wander through the Duke of Atholl's well-managed 

 forest at Dunkeld. And set this as an axiom, that the 

 finest park scenery can only be had as the outcome of 

 forest treatment. Trees are creatures of company. Set 

 them alone, and they spread into cabbage-like forms, and 

 never rise into the stately columns such as can only be 

 produced by the discipline of the grove. 



XLVIII 



It is well perhaps for our comfort that we are not all 

 familiar with the life-history of the common ^ 

 house-fly (Musca domestica). We tolerate its House-Fij 

 presence, provided it does not appear in too great num- 

 bers, regarding it much as we do the house-sparrow a 

 natural domestic companion. Yet of all creatures in the 

 heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters 

 under the earth, it is wellnigh the filthiest in its origin 

 and habits. I do not speak here of the blow-fly and 

 flesh-fly, whereof the occupation, loathsome enough as it 

 appears, is that of beneficial scavengers ; nor of the bot- 

 fly and gad-fly, which, if they be not unmitigated evils, 

 the good purpose which they serve has yet to be revealed ; 



