1884.] Sin JOIIX L UBBOCK OX FORESTERS' ED UCA TIOX. 23 



expensive, and obsolete. An English proprietor would do wrong in 

 handing over his woods to be treated solel}' according to the practice 

 of Scottish forestry, environed as they are by different conditions of 

 growth. Then Scottish woodmen differ so much on technical ques- 

 tions ; but is not that but a plea for wider forestral education ? M. 

 Boppe found Scottish arboriculture brought to great perfection, 

 though forestry, which, in the continental sense, specially includes 

 the renewal of growing trees, was nowhere. We plant thin, then 

 iinally cut down trees, leaving a wilderness of stumps, whereas the 

 forest shoiUd renew itself. In splendid woods surrounding a Scottish 

 nobleman's mansion, a magnificent under"rowth of rhododendrons 

 environed stately oaks, but M. Eoppe's experienced eye saw no pro- 

 vision for replacement when the parent oaks were cut down. There 

 was, further, here, as throughout Britain, no association of suitable 

 species. Xo foreign forester would think of planting oak by itself. 

 But our French professor often found planted on tire identical soil, 

 oak by itself, sometimes with larcli, also often oak and Scotch pine, 

 oak and beech, oak and larch, or oak and chestnut. Most of these 

 conjunctions are economic mistakes. 



Then, again, when young plants were Ijeing reared amidst the 

 stutaps of a ruined forest, free access to sheep was allowed — a 

 very serious mistake, as these animals should be strictly excluded 

 during the first twenty as well as during the last thirty years of tlie 

 one hundred and twenty years which must be allowed for the 

 maturity of a forest. Under proper conservancy, the young forest 

 trees help to replace the gorse and heather by sweeter and better 

 herbage. And sheep may thus be profitably and safely admitted 

 during seventy years of the life of the forest. So much, then, for 

 the inchoate state of public opinion. Are we to look to Government 

 solely for the remedy ? 



Government has strong financial interests in the question, being 

 one of the largest forest jjroprietors in these islands alone. 

 According to no very distant Parliamentary returns, the state of its 

 timber lands W"as not reassuring. Indeed, Commissioners of the 

 House of Commons have reported that matters in the New Forest, 

 in the Forest of Dean, and in Delamere, were in a disgraceful con- 

 dition. Though matters have mended since these reports of 1854, 

 is the asphyxia of red tape undiscoverable in this department ? 

 But this is only a sectional division of the question. "VVe annually 

 import timber valued at from fifteen to twenty millions sterling. 

 Fully five millions of acres in the British Islands might be con- 

 verted into forest land if the trained agents were available to effect 

 such a revolution. Besides, the British Empire is probalily the 

 most richly- wooded confederacy of the globe, there being over 340 



