FORESTRY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH. 211 



Work on excursions daring the progress of the courses of 

 lectures occupy the Edinburgh students about 120 hours, as com- 

 pared with 100 hours similarly spent by the Nancy men; but 

 the latter had the further great advantage of a summer course, 

 occupied as follows (the figures indicating days): — 



Sylvicultural Excui'sions, . 

 Exercises in Working Plans, 

 Botanical Excursions, 

 Geological Excursions, 

 Surveying, 



Total days, 



It will be seen that if the time spent during the Winter Session 

 at Nancy on French Law and the not very useful course of 

 Engineering Drawing be neglected, the work done in Edinburgh 

 compares very favourably both as to quantity and quality with 

 that done at Nancy, even though it be admitted that at the latter 

 school the course in Botany, and some other courses, were specialised 

 in a way that may at present be impossible here. 



During the past eight years twenty students have taken the 

 Agricultural Degree, with Forestry as one of their subjects. Of 

 the six men who did so during the year 1902-3, all but one took 

 up Biology in preference to Mathematics. 



It may reasonably be hoped that, should the Government give 

 effect to the recommendations of the late Forestry Committee, 

 and provide a suitable and accessible practical training ground 

 in Scotland, 1 on which students could reside for a length of time 

 sufficient to enable them to acquire a sound knowledge of practical 

 forest work, or should some other satisfactory arrangement be made 

 for their practical instruction, the University will confer a Degree 

 in Forestry distinct from that in Agriculture. The curriculum of 

 study for the proposed Degree would, after certain necessary modi- 

 fications, remain, at first at any rate, much the same as that now 

 prescribed for the Degree in Agriculture, with a compulsory term 

 of residence and work in the State Demonstration Forest or else- 

 where, such as would correspond with the term of residence on a 



^ See paragraphs 17-23, 26 and 36 {a) of the Report of the Forestry Com- 

 mittee of 1902. 



