182 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



On the Continent, the State are large owners of forests, and 

 these are utilised for the practical teaching given in the woods. 

 The forests of Germany (as many of us know who visited the 

 German woods five years ago) are very extensive, and it is 

 said that these State forests produce annually a revenue of 

 between 20 and 22^ millions sterling. 



Take France also as a country which devotes considerable 

 attention to the cultivation of timber, and what do we find 

 there? France spends annually from the public exchequer a sum 

 of half a million sterling towards Forestiy education and upon 

 its woodlands. Compare again the area of land in the British 

 Isles which is devoted to the growing of trees, and we again 

 find ourselves in the background. From statistics, I observe 

 that only 4 per cent, of our lands is under wood cultivation, 

 while Germany can boast of 25 per cent, of its area being 

 under a crop of trees, and France can lay claim to 17 per cent, 

 of its area being so occupied. I have already said that the 

 facilities which exist for Forestry education in this country are 

 practically of no account. I may, perhaps, mention the school 

 at Coopers Hill, where a training is given to those who enter 

 the Indian Forest service, but I believe that the maintenance 

 of this college of instruction is defrayed by the Indian Govern- 

 ment. I was pleased to notice a paragraph in the Scotsinan of 

 30th July last, calling attention to what Forestry had done for 

 India. With your permission I will read it, as I think it worthy 

 of being reproduced. 



"The development of Forestry in British India during less 

 than half a century, is an object-lesson to this country on both 

 its scientific and financial sides. In the days of Alexander the 

 Great, and through the Buddhist period well into the Christian 

 era, the Punjab and Northern and Central India were covered 

 with forests, to the benefit of the people and of the climate. 

 The gradual invasion of nomadic tribes, followed by the devasta- 

 tion wrought by the Mohammedan conquerors, cleared them 

 away, created the great desert tracts from Sind to Raj poo tana 

 and Delhi, where the people perish periodically from famine, 

 and reduced the general rainfall of all Northern India. The 

 English East India Company encouraged the destruction of the 

 finest teak forests by granting uncontrolled monopolies to private 

 persons, so that Malabar and South India also were cleared. 

 Lord Dalhousie, having won from the King of Burma the royal 



