THE FORESTRY EXHIBITION AT PARIS. 349 



but that the present system of recruiting for the Indian service 

 is not arranged to attract such men. Indeed, I consider that the 

 present system, to a very large extent, favours those whose 

 education has been literary rather those who have been trained 

 in scientific subjects; and I think that the three years' training 

 which is afterwards given does not fully supply the deficiency. 



As a forester of over thirty years' experience, my own opinion 

 is that a really successful forest officer must every day — indeed, 

 every hour — as he goes about his work, apply scientific methods 

 and a love for science to a correct appreciation of the phenomena 

 which he comes across, in whatever country he may have to 

 work ; and more especially is this necessary in countries like 

 India, Africa, Australia, etc., where the species of tree, the 

 plants of the forests, the animals, birds, and insects, the rocks 

 and soils, are not so well known and so thoroughly understood as 

 are those of countries like Great Britain. To do the best he can 

 for his charge, a forester must study the species of trees which 

 compose his forests, and endeavour to utilise them all to the best 

 advantage, investigating their products ; and to do this fully he 

 must know their names and their position in botanical arrange- 

 ment. If he finds his trees diseased, he has to work out the cause, 

 which may, perhaps, be one of those terrible peats like the "Nun" 

 moth, capable of destroying miles of valuable forest in a single 

 year ; perhaps one of these almost equally terrible but less easily 

 seen enemies, such as the Trametes fungus, which can spread it- 

 self underground from root to root in groves of young trees, and 

 do incalculable damage in the most insidious manner. 



Here, in Scotland, foresters are in most cases more or less born 

 to the work, and their powers of observation of forest phenomena 

 are developed by experience obtained at perhaps the mo3t im- 

 pressionable age ; but valuable as is the experience so gained, it 

 is far more so when it can be rightly guided and directed by a 

 scientific educational training. 



Next to the development of powers of accurate observation, 

 I should place, as most important for a forester in any country, 

 a preliminary scientific aptitude and a liking for outdoor life, 

 improved and directed by scientific training; and for this reason 

 I can only regret that the recommendations made recently by the 

 British Association were not adopted. Those l'ecommendations 

 urged the importance of selecting candidates of scientific aptitude; 

 but the authorities seem to prefer to select men, excellent, no 



