I880.J FOnESTliY EXlinUTIOX IX KDINnURGlI. 421 



THE INTERNATIONAL FORESTRY EXHIBITION IN 

 EDINBURGH: AN ARGUMENT FOR THE ORGANI- 

 ZATION OF A NATIONAL SCHOOL OF FORESTRY. 



r.v TiiK iiKV. J. V. ];k()WN', i.l.d. 

 Rrad hi'forc tin: Brit ink Ai-^o-iatio/i at Aberdeen, 188 5. 



AlTAliKNTLY tlie International Fuiestry Exhibition held in 

 Edinburgh \i^a\q great satisfaction to multitudes. It gave to 

 many new conceptions of what is comprised in Forestnj, as that 

 term is now being applied. To quote words which I know to 

 have been used, they expected, perhaps, to find " lots of logs and 

 deals and bundles of sticks inside the building; and large trees, far 

 larger ones than could have been easily transported thither and 

 planted there, growing outside ; " all that, but little more. The 

 Exhibition presented to many, as they advanced along the nave and 

 transepts, what was productive to them of surprise as well as of 

 delight, and well it might be. Never before had there been collected 

 under one roof, such exhibitions of forest produce as were to be seen 

 there, collected from Japan, from India, from Johore, from the Cape 

 of Good Hope, and from British Guiana, etc. ; each of them, perhaps, 

 a collection previously unequalled. 



But now that time has sufficed to cool down any extravagance of 

 feeling which may have manifested itself while the Exhibition was 

 still open, we can afford to glance at defects in the Exhibition, with 

 no design to depreciate that enterprise, but with a desire to learn 

 something which may do us good, by the consideration of what luas 

 not there, along with tlie consideration of what loas there. My own 

 feeling on the opening of that Exhibition, and on many visits which 

 I subsequently made to it, was one of disappointment, combined 

 M'ith admiration and delight. 



Eor half a century and more there has been in operation on the 

 Continent of Europe, and in the latter portion of that lialf-century 

 in almost every country on that Continent, — I know of no 

 exception, — a method of forest conservation and exploitation known 

 in Germany as die fachvjerk Methode ; in Erance as la rnethode des 

 eompartiracnts ; in other countries by one or other of these designa- 

 tions ; and in others as the scientific method, that is to say, of 

 managing forests. It is the one method which has given its 

 character to the present era of forest economy. But scarcely was 

 there to be seen an indication of this fact having received any 



2 E 



