1885.] FORESTin' EX II I li IT 10. \ IX KD/XUCUd/f. 425 



producing beautiful and admirable woodlands, which so satisfy all 

 our British cravings, that the forest economy, founded on the most 

 advanced forest science of the day practised on the Continent, is 

 ignored, if it be not altogether unknown. It was an Exhibition of 

 British ideas of forestry ; and to this extent an Exhibition of tlie 

 forestry of the present, — of the present and the past, let us hope, not 

 of the present and the future, — a point of departure marked by a 

 grand display of attainments made, wliich may serve as a standard 

 of comparison to wliich to refer attainments in the practical 

 application of modern forest science which inny be made in the 

 future, whether tlic near or tlie more remote. 



"With remarkable accord has it been declared by many that the 

 organization of a National Scliool of Forestry would be a natural 

 outcome of such an Exhiljition. It was " in the interests of forestry, 

 and to promote a movement for the establishment of a Xational 

 School of Forestry in Scotland, as well as with a view of furthering 

 and stimulating a greater improvement in the management of woods 

 in Scotland and the sister countries, which has manifested itself 

 during recent years," thit arrangements for the organization of the 

 Exhibition were entered upon ; and the Exhibition has, in the way I 

 have indicated, as well as in otlier ways, made more apparent the 

 need that exists for such a school 



I have spoken of the correlated advantages resulting from the 

 management of forests in accordance with what has been called in some 

 countries the scientific method — natural reproduction, progressive^ 

 amelioration, and sustained production. In enforcement of the argu- 

 ment upon which I have entered, I may take now another step in 

 advance, and state that while these results are secured, every operation 

 in the forest, from the lopping of a branch and the cutting of a sapling, 

 to the felling of a tree and the clearing of a forest patch, in a well- 

 administered and efficiently managed forest, is so ordered and 

 carried out as to subserve the accomplishment of these objects ; 

 and this can only be effected through forest administrators, and 

 forest officials entrusted with the operations prescribed by them, being 

 extensively acquainted with forest science. 



In the forest literature of the Continent we possess an immense 

 body of collected data and scientific treatises prepared and lying 

 ready to our hand. But very few of our foresters can read Latin or 

 French or German, or Swedish, Spanish, or Hungarian, all wliich 

 languages are rich in forest literature. Truth is said to lie at the 

 bottom of a well. It may be so ; but the well is deep, and many 

 have nothing to draw with ; and, moreover, on the Continent, in 

 almost every country — I know not an exception, — including those 



