320 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



developed from a School of Mines established as long ago as 1TC5. A 

 forest institute was begun in 1807. Reorganizations have frequently 

 taken place, until now the course of instruction is divided into six 

 classes, two of which relate to forestry and forest engineering. The 

 whole course is arranged for four years. From a memorial volume 

 published recently, and soon after the celebration of the first centen- 

 nial of the academy, it appears that it has graduated 5,373 pupils. 

 The average annual attendance in recent years has been about 150. 



Other schools of a lower grade, having a course of instruction of 

 only one year in extent, are established at Aggsbach, in Lower Aus- 

 tria, and at Wildalpen, in Styria. 



The Austro-Hungarian Empire has also many societies, Avhich, 

 though not schools of forestry, have a more or less direct relation to 

 that subject and do much to promote it. Such are the Forest Society 

 of the Tyrol, the Forestry Association of Manhartsburg, in Lower 

 Austria, the Vienna Joint Stock Company for Forestry, the Forestry 

 Company of Styria and Carinthia, the Association of Moravia and Bo- 

 hemia, the Society of Western Galicia, and several others. In Croatia 

 is a School of Agriculture and Forestry, with five professors, and a 

 course of study of three years. 



The Federal Union of the Swiss Cantons established a Polytechnic 

 School at Zurich in 1855, in which a school of forestry forms the fifth 

 division of instruction. The course of teaching extends to two years 

 and a half. The separate cantons also make provision for elementary 

 instruction in the science and art of forestry ; and still further provi- 

 sion is made for the teaching of the subject. As different states or 

 kingdoms have a common interest in the navigation of a river which 

 flows through their territories, and will rightly insist upon its being 

 unimpeded, so it has been found by the cantons that they often have a 

 common interest in the preservation of forests which may be situated 

 in separate cantons, because their effects reach far be3^ond their par- 

 ticular locality. One canton might be more harmed by the destruc- 

 tion of a forest belonging to another canton than that canton itself. 

 Accordingly, through the influence of the Swiss Forestry Association 

 and the help of others acting with them, the Federal Constitution was 

 amended in 1873, by the adoption of an article declaring that " the 

 Federal Union has the right of supervising structures for the protec- 

 tion of watercourses and of the forest police in the mountain-regions." 

 In the exercise of this right, the Union in 1876 enacted a comprehen- 

 sive law, embodied in thirty-one distinct articles, relating to the high 

 surveillance of the Confederation over the police of forests in the ele- 

 vated regions. , 



For the more efi^ectual carrying out of this law, provision was made 

 in the same year for holding what may be called forest institutes, in 

 the several cantons, during two months every year. At these institutes 

 practical instruction is given in forestry, little if any attention being 



