EUROPEAN SCHOOLS OF FORESTRY. 321 



bestowed on theories. The course of instruction embraces the fol- 

 lowing subjects, and we give the schedule, as suggesting what perhaps 

 may be profitably done in this country at present, and while waiting 

 for the establishment of fully endowed forest schools. 



1. Forest surveys ; the marking out of woodlands ; measurement 

 and calculation of small areas, as also of the trunks of trees, linear 

 distances, etc. ; estimation of single trees and parcels of forest, as to 

 quantity and value ; making of forest roads ; means of shielding for- 

 ests against avalanches and small slides. 



2. Study of the kinds of wood and of injurious herbs that should 

 be known by sub-foresters. 



3. Elementary study of the soil, and of the relations between differ- 

 ent kinds of soils, and of the nature of different tracts of land. 



4. Indispensable ideas of climatology and meteorology. 



5. Cultivation and management of forests. 



6. The information most important to sub-foresters concerning 

 the working of forests, forest police and protection, and book- 

 keeping. 



7. The number of pupils shall not exceed thirty. 



The applicants must be at least eighteen years of age, and must 

 pass an examination in the primary studies as taught at the best schools ; 

 and, if, at the end of the course of instruction, they are approved, they 

 receive a certificate which puts them in the way of an appointment to 

 the care of the high forests of which the Confederation has assumed 

 the control, or of the forests still managed by the cantons separately, 

 or by other corporations. 



The teachers of these institutes are appointed by the cantons, sub- 

 ject to the approval of the Federal authority, but they are paid from 

 the general treasury. 



Italy, which has suffered greatly from the removal of her forests, 

 and has taken action similar to that of the Swiss Confederation for 

 their control, has an Institute of Forestry in the vale of Vallombrosa. 

 It is situated in a noble wood of firs, high upon the slope of the Ap- 

 ennines, near the source of the Arno, where it puts to good use an old 

 convent. In its plan of instruction the institute at Yallombrosa is 

 much like that at Nancy. 



Distinguished as Sweden is for her interest in education, statis- 

 tics showing that at the present time only three per cent, of her crimi- 

 nals even are without school-training, we should expect that she would 

 not be behind other countries in the matter of forestral instruction ; nor 

 is she. A competent observer tells us that of late years " strenuous and 

 successful endeavors have been made to introduce into the manas^ement 

 of the forests the latest improvements adopted in Germany and France, 

 and to regulate the national forest economy in accordance with the 

 most advanced forest science of the day." The system of instruction 

 established embraces a Forest Institute at Stockholm, which, in the 



TOL. XIX. 21 



