734 A NATIONAL SCHOOL OF FORESTRY. [April 



may be tlio case in India and the colonies, we have at home no 

 large forests under the charge of Government, and this was an 

 obstacle in the way of the practical education of foresters ; still, in 

 spite of these difficulties and drawbacks, he considered that in a 

 country like this, with so many dependencies and colonies where a 

 knowledge of the science of forestry is so necessary, it is absolutely 

 essential that a School of Forestry should be established. It was 

 the duty of the Society, therefore, to awaken an intelligent interest 

 in this question ; and he for one would be glad to do all that he 

 could in and out of Parliament to further this praisewortliy object. 

 He would have wished further to illustrate the necessity for good 

 Schools of Forestry by what was now taking place in India. The 

 wanton destruction of forests in that country had been going on for 

 years. Who could say that the terrible famine which was now 

 devastating some of the fairest provinces of the empire might not 

 be directly traceable to the improvidence of man in denuding the 

 country of its natural vegetation, and so altering all the climatic 

 arrangements of nature ? " 



The paper read by me was printed in the Transactions of the 

 Society, and subsequently reprinted. Before the close of the year, 

 a copy of the Plea for the Creation of a School of Forestry in connec- 

 tion with the Arhoretum in Edinhurgh was forwarded by the 

 Secretary of State for the Home Department to the Scottish Educa- 

 tion Department, and afterwards, on the recommendation of this 

 Education Department, to Her Majesty's Office of Works ; and 

 subsequently a copy of the paper on " Schools of Forestry," read 

 before the meeting of the Scottish Arboricultural Society, and 

 published in their Transactions, was forwarded to the Office of 

 Works from the Home Office. 



By the then Secretary of State for the Colonies, copies of the 

 Plea were at the expense of the Government " addressed to those 

 Colonial Governments which are principally concerned in this 

 important question ; " and by his successor, copies of the paper on 

 " Schools of Forestry," read by me before the Scottish Arboricultural 

 Society, with reprints of a Eeview of suggestions relative to the 

 formation of a British School of Forestry, which had appeared in 

 the Journal of Forestry, and copies of one or other of accounts of 

 Schools of Forestry at Evois in Finland, at the Escurial in Spain, at 

 Hohenheim in Wurtemburg, and at Carlsruhe, reprinted from the 

 Journal of Forestry, were at the expense of the Government sent to 

 the Governors of Colonies, to which copies of the Pica had been 

 sent by his predecessor. 



Of the results I know little, but tlie following statement I find 

 embodied in a minute from Sir Henry E. Bulwer, the Lieutenant- 



