6S4: AN- ANGLO-CANADIAN FOREST SCHOOL. [Mar. 



language; the difterence between tlie technical terms in England 

 and France presents an additional difficulty ; and political con- 

 siderations cannot wholly be ignored, as, in fact, events have shown. 

 Hence the decision has been arrived at to arrange for the training 

 of the students of the Indian Forest Department at the Eoyal 

 Engineering College at Cooper's Hill. In all probability this section 

 of the College will be thrown open to other than students of the 

 department ; and it has been suggested, with some show of plausi- 

 bility, that if this action is supplemented by the establishment of 

 a Forest School at Edinburgh all reasonable demands will be complied 

 with. But apart from the costliness of a course of study at Cooper's 

 Hill, and the consequently very narrow limitations of the sphere 

 of usefulness of that institution as a training school for British 

 foresters, a serious and fundamental objection to this proposal is 

 immediately patent. How can proper forestry instruction be given 

 in a country which possesses no woodlands of sufficient size to 

 meet the requirements of such a school ? The opinion of M. 

 Boppe, the well-known French expert, has been souglit by the 

 Government. A special visit was paid by him to this country, 

 and, after a tour of inspection, his reply to the question whether 

 the English and Scotch forests were in such a condition as to enable 

 the Indian forest students to be trained in them with advantasje, 

 was emphatically in the negative. " It is a matter of regret," he 

 wrote, " that among all the forests visited by us in our travels, 

 there is not a single one suitable for the teaching of sylviculture 

 on the broad basis so essential when the pupils are called upon to 

 apply it in all quarters of the globe." It is needless to enlarge 

 upon this point. A slight acquaintance v/ith British woodlands is 

 sufficient to confirm the assertion. The end in view cannot be 

 attained '• by utilizing young plantations recently created by the 

 hand of man," or plantations too old, or too much overworked, to 

 be available for scientific instruction ; and to one or other of these 

 categories all English and Scotch forests must be relegated. 



But this difficulty is not, we believe, insurmountable ; and one 

 suggestion has recently been thrown out for which it is highly 

 desirable to obtain serious consideration. As we mentioned not 

 long since. Professor Fream, in discussing Canadian agriculture in 

 the Journal of the Eoyal Society of Agriculture, proposes the 

 establishment " of a thoroughly equipped Forest School in Canada, 

 the cost or part of the cost of which might be jointly Ijorne by the 

 Dominion and the Imperial Covernments." And many forcible 

 reasons can be urged in favour of the proposition. The instruction 

 would then be given in what Professor Fream rightly describes as 

 the greatest forest region in the world. Canadians are gradually 



