Looking abroad and seeing what has already been done by nearly 

 every State in Europe, for the thorough education of foresters in 

 scientific and practical arboriculture, we Britons must feel thoroughly 

 ashamed of the feeble attempts we liave made as a nation to promote 

 the interests and advancement of such an important branch of our 

 home and colonial industry. The subject has long been pressed on 

 public attention, and ably advocated by many wise and far-seeing men, 

 but still tlnre has been no decisive action taken by the Government, 

 or any other responsible party, to establish in the British Isles 

 such a highly important and necessary institution as a School of 

 Forestry. 



Urged by the growing scarcity of timber for fuel and constructive 

 purposes in our Indian possessions, and the crying want of a sufficient 

 number of properly qualified men to undertake the superintendence 

 of the magnificent forests which still exist in India, so as to increase 

 and properly utilize their products, and to replant and cultivate in a 

 proper manner those extensive tracts of forest land which have been 

 ruthlessly cut down, cleared, or burnt, in bygone years. Her Majesty's 

 Secretary of State for India felt the necessity of doing something tc 

 remedy the evil, and made a well-meant if abortive attempt to 

 advance the status of arboriculture in this country, by sending a few 

 well-educated youths to France and Germany to study forestry at this 

 ■country's expense, for two years and a half; after which, to quote the 

 words of the order, " they will be required to pass some time, pro- 

 bably not less than a month, with one or more approved foresters in 

 Scotland " ! in that short period of "probably not less than a month " 

 they being expected to master the details of all the practice our most 

 experienced Scotch foresters have spent a lifetime in acquiring. 

 We take it for granted that that is what the Secretary for India meant 

 when drawing up the regulations, but it is quite possible we may be 

 mistaken, and the intention was for the Indian forest candidates to 

 teach the Scotch foresters all the " forestry " they had managed to 

 pick up in France and Germany ; a matter, we agree, much easier for 

 them to perform, and more suited for the time given, than our first 

 supposition, that they came home to be taught forestry here. It is to 

 be hoped that such a brilliant scheme has done much more for the 



