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A BEGINNER IN FORESTRY 



BY ANNE WARNER 



(Book Rights Reserved) 



Paper 1 



1AM very ignorant, but I am going 

 to learn. There is always some- 

 thing interesting in the ignorance 

 of those who intend to grow wise. 

 Those already wise are interested be- 

 cause they are conscious how much is 

 to be learned ; and those equally ig- 

 norant like to observe the struggles of 

 their fellow in evolution. Therefore, I 

 am going to write out the steps — the 

 first steps — of my own personal pro- 

 gression. Perhaps it will amuse the 

 ones who know it all anyway, but it is 

 not for them that I shall trouble to write ; 

 it is for the others — the others who 

 know no more than I do myself (at 

 present). I shall write for them in the 

 hope that they, too, may be led to learn. 

 In the first place, then, I must begin 

 by telling where I am to go to school. 

 Lichtenberg is the place, and it is para- 

 dise. When I came abroad to look for 

 a place in the country, yet near a town, 

 where everything should be pure 

 country, except that there must be all 

 the comforts of town, where I could 

 have plenty of rooms and yet not be 

 charged over three shillings a day, and 



where there must be a forest handy — 

 well, no one thought that I could find 

 it. I hunted from Berlin to Munich, 

 and even farther, cross-country, and I 

 found it — as I never doubt that I shall 

 find anything if I set out to look for it. 



The Gasthof lies in the edge of the 

 Harz ; the view from my windows is 

 over a sea of cultivated fields, dotted 

 with fifteen picturesque little villages ; 

 the comforts are all here, the beer is 

 ideal, my stove is equally good, and the 

 forest is so close that when we cross 

 the road behind the house we enter it 

 at once. "We" are "She" and I. "She" 

 is a wood-fairy and all the teacher that 

 I have so far. The forester is in Thur- 

 ingia for a fortnight — whcs he comes 

 home he will teach me gladly. Until 

 then I have a German lexicon, and as 

 it doesn't give pictures of the leaves, 

 and does give all the names in Latin, 

 it is very little good to me. 



You are to understand that I am well 

 grovmded in the theories and ideals of 

 the subject. I know all its bearings on 

 history, commerce, and progress. I 

 have learned by heart all the deficien- 

 cies of bad management and just what 



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