Mc Arthur. — On the Importance of Forestry. 461 



Art. LVI. — On the Importance of Forestry. 

 By D. McArthur, Inspector of Forests. 

 [Read before the Southland Institute, 20th September, 1881.] 

 I have been since my boyhood a lover of trees in all stages of growth as 

 forests and as single trees. When attending school in the year that 

 Waterloo was fought, I had to pass through two miles of a beautiful plan- 

 tation, at the end of which was a large barn, where the then Earl of Brea- 

 dalbaue had a number of men threshing larch and fir cones with flails, and 

 on my enquiring why they were threshing the sticks, I was shown a handful 

 of the seed and informed that these would grow into large trees. Fortun- 

 ately the head gardener's son was my class-fellow, consequently I had the 

 privilege of following the seed to the nursery, and in due time the seedlings 

 to the hillsides and barren moors, where I had the further privilege of being 

 permitted to plant some; and now there are thousands of acres of mag- 

 nificent forests clothing the previously barren land with beauty and wealth. 

 Land then not worth a shilling an acre is now worth from two to three 

 hundred pounds. 



The Scotch fir is planted amongst the larch, oak, elm, etc., on account 



m 

 of the shelter afforded to the latter owing to its bushy form, and it is 



frequently planted in belts of a chain or two wide on the weather side of 



young plantations, for the same reason. 



The Earl of Wemyss and March about fifty years ago planted exten- 

 sively in the upper parts of Peebleshire and around Nidpath Castle, and 

 along the Tweed, beautifying the country and greatly increasing the value 

 of his property. 



There is a stretch of country about half way between Edinburgh and 

 Peebles known as the " King's Edge," and when I first saw it I could not 

 imagine anything more desolate and cold-looking. It consisted chiefly of a 

 large extent of cold, wet, inert peat-bog, lying on a bed of impervious con- 

 crete. So hopelessly barren was the surface that it would not even grow a 

 ivindlestraw. The proprietor cut it into strips and squares by open ditching, 

 breaking the concrete bottom, and planted belts of Scotch fir and other trees 

 as breakwinds across the prevailing winds. When I saw the locality again 

 in 1850, the plantations were thriving beautifully, and now it is converted 

 into fine fertile fields. 



The climate was completely changed by the draining and planting. I 

 have seen the management of a very extensive natural forest in Argyleshire, 

 consisting chiefly of oak, ash and birch, skirting the base of Ben Cruachan 

 and bordering the shores of Loch Awe. This forest consists of many 

 thousands of acres, reproducing itself by stooling, as it is technically 



