to THE Members ot the Scottish ARBoRicuLTURAt 

 Society — of the English Arbobicultural 

 SociETT — of the American Forestry Associa- 

 tion — AND OF the American Forestry 

 Congress. 



Gentlemen, 



Presuming on the interest in the promotion 

 of Forest Science which has been manifested by you, I 

 desire to submit to you the following statement, and to 

 invite your co-operation in the enterprise to which it 

 relates. 



In the summer of 1875 — with results which I am 

 about to state — I devoted to the publication of the first 

 of a series of Treatises on subjects pertaining to Sorest 

 Science, a sum of money which had been presented to me 

 on the conclusion of a brief ministry in Berwick-on-Tweed ; 

 and I have now set apart a sum of money which camo to 

 me last year in a somewhat similar way, to the publication 

 of another series of volumes on Forest Economy, of which 

 The Forests of England and the Management of them in hye-gone 

 times, now published, is the first ; and a second, to be 

 entitled The French Forest Ordinnance of 1699, with Notices of 

 the Previous Treatment of Forests in France, is now in the 

 press. 



In reporting to myfriends in 1875 the disposallhad made 

 of their gift, I referred to the fact that Benjamin Franklin 

 tells that one mode of doing good which he followed, was 

 to lend money to young men beginning business under 

 the condition that it was not to be repaid to him, but to 

 some young man in like circumstances, on a similar con- 

 dition ; " and thus," said he, " I have the satisfaction of 



