§ Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
§ LORD RIBBLESDALE, in moving the Second Reading of this Bill, said, it was a very modest and useful measure. Under the Improvement of Land Act, 1864, landowners in Scotland were only allowed to borrow money and charge their estates with it for the purpose of 1043 planting trees for shelter. The same limitation applied to landowners in this country prior to the Settled Land Act of 1882, which removed that restriction. It has been represented to the Board of Agriculture that it is desirable Scotch landowners should be put in the same position as landowners on this side of the Border. The Bill is very simple. It has only two clauses, and there is nothing at all contentious about it. Its passage through the other House was facilitated, I believe, by the Chancellor of the Exchequer's quotation of Dr. Johnson's remark, that among other things he found to disapprove of in Scotland when he visited it was that the country was entirely denuded of trees. He hoped their Lordships would give the Bill a Second Reading.
§ Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Lord Ribblesdale.)
§ Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Monday next.