G64 EDITORIAL NOTES. [iMau. 



The Fees for the Coukse of Training at the Fokestuy School 

 AT Coopek's Hill are, according to the evidence given by ]\Ir. 

 Pedder before the Select Committee on Forestry, fixed at £180 

 a year for each student. This sum covers all expenses except 

 pocket money, viz. board and lodgings, lectures, and a six weeks' 

 tour annually to the Forest School at Xancy. The sum is large, 

 so large indeed as to be prohibitory to all poor aspirants lor dis- 

 tinction in forestry science ; we, do not, however, say nor imply 

 that the amount is too large to cover the expenses of the scheme 

 on which the school is founded. This is a point we do not at 

 present intend to touch upon. What strikes us as most objection- 

 able in connection with these high fees is the fact, that they will 

 narrow the field whence forestry students may be drawn, in such a 

 way as to exclude the whole of those who may be reasonably ex- 

 pected to be specially fitted by the circumstances and associations 

 of their early years to enter on the study with a bent in its favour 

 that would assure the highest success. We allude to the sons of 

 practical foresters and to young foresters generally. It may fairly 

 be presumed that young men who have been associated with trees 

 and with woodland management for many of the earlier years of 

 their life, have acquired a large amount of information of a practical 

 kind respecting these subjects, and also a love of trees, which not 

 one in a thousand candidates from an}' other field can possibly 

 possess. Yet this valuable element is to be excluded from the 

 public service because they are unable to pay the fees which are 

 required to cover the expenses of the scheme of training decided 

 upon. Surely this is matter for deep regret i'rom all points of view. 

 The annual fee is in point of fact three or four times the amount 

 of the yearly salary of the averiige English forester. It is there- 

 fore obvious that he cannot place his son at Cooper's Hill Forestry 

 School, let his capacity and bent for such a career be ever so con- 

 spicuously marked. This we consider is a seiious mistake, alike in 

 national and individual interests, which should be speedily rectified 

 by some means, either at Cooper's Hill, or by the establishment of 

 a less costly school elsewhere. The six weeks' annual sojourn of the 

 students in France must add very materially to the costs of the 

 establishment at Cooper's Hill, and, it may Ije asked, fur w hat good :' 

 It is difficult for any one outside the pale of officialism to conceive 

 what practical advantage will accrue to the Indian Forest Service 

 (in whose interests this annual Continental visit of students is 

 planned) from a mere holiday of a few youths to the forests in 

 connection with the school at Xancy, during which in the circum- 

 stances they can see and learn little that they may not see and 

 learn in India, where a similar system of forest management is in 



