EUROPEAN SCHOOLS OF FORESTRY. 323 



For although her forests, particularly in the northern portion, seem 

 inexhaustible, yet even among these the waste by accidental and de- 

 signed burnings has at length shown the necessity of care and economy 

 in forestry management. The forests of Russia have been swept off 

 year by year by fires until portions of the country are suffering in a 

 change of climate and in other respects as the consequence. The 

 Volga is diminished in volume ; navigation is becoming more difficult ; 

 fuel is srettino; scarce : and the services of those trained in forest 

 schools are needed in Russia almost as much as they are in Italy or 

 Spain. 



The Agronomic Institute at St. Petersburg is designed to give the 

 best education in both agriculture and sylviculture, and is organized 

 for this purpose in two sections. Those admitted to it must have 

 finished a course of instruction at some gymnasium. It has one hun- 

 dred and fifty students in the forestry section, a three years' course of 

 study, and graduates annually about forty puj)ils. 



The Agricultural and Forestral Academy at Petrovsk, near Mos- 

 cow, founded in 1865, is similar in character and course of instruction 

 to the institute at St. Petersburg. In 1872 it had three hundred and 

 thh'ty-three pupils in attendance. 



About fifty miles from St. Petersburg is the forest school of Lis- 

 sino, a school of the second class, whose graduates receive the rank of 

 forest conductors. The course of studies is of a practical character, 

 and is of three years in extent.* 



" This sketch gives a partial idea of the importance that is attached to forestry in coun- 

 tries whose age and experience have carried them beyond the stage of wasteful expenditure 

 of resources in wood through which we are passing, to the point where necessity compels 

 them to do all that is possible to make amends for their former recklessness, and to en- 

 deavor bv every means to restore what thcv have lost. The trees are rccosrnized as one of 

 man's most valuable inheritances with which his fortunes, public and private, are inti- 

 mately associated ; and no interest in state or nation is paramount to that of having them 

 preserved and properly cared for. The sources of information in regard to forestry and 

 forest schools are of course as yet chiefly foreign. J. Croumbie Brown, of Haddington, 

 England, for some time Government botanist at the Cape of Good Hope, has published 

 several volumes bearing more or less directly on the subject. Hon. C. C. Andrews, late 

 Minister to Sweden and Xorway, has made a valuable report to the Department of State 

 on the forests and forest-culture of Sweden. A report on forests and forestry, in con- 

 nection with the International Exhibition at Vienna, in 1873, has also been made by John 

 A. Warder, one of our commissioners. A voluminous report upon forestry has also been 

 made, under the direction of the Commissioner of Agriculture, in pursuance of an act of 

 Congress of 1876, by Franklin B. Hough, which contains a large amount of valuable in- 

 formation. We have drawn from these, in addition to the numerous French and German 

 pablications on forestry, for the facts here given in regard to forest schools. 



