1886.] EDITORIAL NOTES. 660 



])ractice. Obviously it must be a matter of very little consequence 

 whether these youths reach India with or without twelve weeks of 

 such experience, if they have undergone the course of scientific and 

 technical training prescribed in all other respects satisfactorily. 

 Tt would be incredible to suppose that such a meagre insight into 

 the practical features of sylviculture as may be obtained in the 

 circumstances would be considered sufficient qualification in the 

 estimation of tlie authorities to place these young men in posts of 

 responsibility — as, for instance, to direct or control labour in the 

 forest without superior control — immediately on their arrival in 

 India. Altliough we are told by the same witness in the same 

 report that only the inferior grades of forest officers are trained in 

 India, it is too absurd to imagine that there is no course of training 

 for the young men who have passed at Cooper's Hill as qualified at 

 from 19 to 24 years of age after their arrival in India. If then, 

 as we are bound to assume is the case, these students arrive in 

 India incapable of undertaking even subordinate responsiljility in 

 practical forest work after they have finished tlieir course of study 

 at Cooper's Hill, would the omission of their annual visit to Nancy 

 of six weeks for two successive years be a regrettable matter in 

 any way ? We think not, but leave practical people to draw their 

 own conclusions. 



Waste Lands and the Unemployed. — At a time like the 

 present, wdien the cry of the unemployed poor is raised on all sides 

 for help, the suggestion that they would be profitably employed 

 alike in their own and the public interests in the reclaiming of waste- 

 land, may well be seriously considered. In a country so small as 

 the United Kingdom, with a climate exceptionally favourable, and 

 a teeming population, there should practically be no waste land, 

 because there really is comparatively little of its area except the 

 bleak sea-coasts and the mountain tops that may not be utilized 

 and rendered productive in one way or another. Yet in a railway 

 ride of an hour's duration, almost anywhere the traveller may pass 

 through thousands of acres on either hand that are unproductive oT 

 anything contributing to the wellbeing of the people in either 

 material or labour. No benefit is obtained from these tracts of 

 unreclaimed land by either landlord, tenant, or peasant. And it 

 would be easy to show that their existence is not merely a negative 

 evil, but a very positive or active one, in so far as it affects public 

 health and climatic conditions. But that is not our present purpose, 

 which is simply to point out that in our waste lands there is an 

 ample field for employment for the thousands of unemployed poor 



