34 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [DEC. 3, 
where forest operations are going on, or where the students have 
an opportunity to practise what they have learned during the 
winter. The full winter courses give instruction in : 
(1) Cultivation of forest trees and the uses to which their 
woods may be applied, with the mode of propagating them in 
different soils. 
(2) Forest exploitation and the management of forests ac- 
cording to the various systems now in use. 
3) Forest taxation and mensuration. 
4) Surveying, draining and embanking. 
5) The methods of resisting the encroachments of shifting 
sands by binding and planting them with forest-trees. 
(6) Care and chase of game. 
(7) Laws and regulations governing the forests. 
The examination which the candidates must undergo is very 
strict ; and the result of this system has proved eminently bene- 
ficial to the management of forests. 
But at present it would be of far greater advantage to our 
State to establish a simple ‘‘School of Forestry,” in which 
young men could receive the proper training to qualify them for 
appointment to subordinate positions in the forest service. 
France has done much to educate good foresters, tree-wardens, 
etc., by purchasing the well-known forest-farm ‘‘ Barres,” sit- 
uated about 1,000 feet above sea-level, near the great Orleans 
forests. This farm had already been used by its owner, M. 
Vilmorin, for forty years asa private experimental station for 
forest-trees, with the following objects : 
(1) Investigations in regard to the most profitable use of cer- 
tain soils for raising the most valuable kinds of wood. With 
this department there were connected experiments for acclima- 
tizing valuable foreign forest-trees. 
(2) Raising at the least possible expense the greatest amount 
of good seedlings, combined with observations in regard to the 
yearly increase of wood in the various forest-trees. 
(3) Producing and closely examining the seeds used in the 
State forests. 
The French government, notwithstanding the great financial 
trouble at that time, bought this farm in 1873, for the purpose 
of establishing there a ‘‘ government school of forestry.” This 
was done without interfering in any way with the objects to 
which the farm had been for a long time so beneficially subser- 
vient. ‘To this establishment there was simply added : 
(4) The ‘‘ school of forestry,” in which young men obtain such 
information as to enable them, after the completion of the full 
course, to act as foresters, forest-inspectors, tree-wardens, etc. 
The course Jasts through two years, and is more calculated for 
