220 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



foremost, the sons of the big landowners and young men who 

 are preparing for the highest class of estate managers, must 

 be given the opportunity of acquiring such knowledge. 

 Hence the establishment of a course of forestry teaching 

 should be arranged at Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, and 

 Dublin. Ultimately regular forest faculties may be organised 

 at these universities, or a joint faculty for forestry and 

 agriculture, but at the outset we may be satisfied with the 

 appointment of a lecturer on forestry at each of these centres 

 of learning. 



For practical instruction an area of 100 to 200 acres should be 

 acquired at or near each university, where sowing and planting, 

 etc., could be taught, and where illustrative experiments could be 

 made. But something more is wanted, and this has been fully 

 explained in the Forestry Committee's report. There should be 

 at least one larger area in each, England, Scotland, and Ireland, 

 of from 2000 to 10,000 acres, under a competent manager, where 

 systematic economic forestry is carried out on a large scale. 

 These State demonstration forests will serve a double purpose ; 

 they will afford the means of introducing university students to 

 systematic and rational management, such as is likely to be 

 adopted on the estates with which they will afterwards be con- 

 nected. These areas must be managed as commercial undertakings, 

 so as to produce the best financial results. In the second place, 

 young men of the working classes can be received at these forests 

 as working apprentices, giving them an opportunity of acquiring 

 a sound knowledge of the business, thus fitting them for the posts 

 of woodman, forester, or bailiff on the various estates of the 

 country. Finally, arrangements may be made at agricultural 

 colleges for instruction in foi-estry for the benefit of men who, 

 while unable to pass through a university course, prepare for the 

 management of landed estates. 



As to the funds required for extended afibrestation, these will 

 no doubt be forthcoming in the case of many landed proprietors^ 

 as soon as we have succeeded in convincing them that economically 

 conducted forestry will pay a fair interest on the invested capital. 

 In other cases, however, this will not be so. The Forestry 

 Committee in their report have dealt with the question of State 

 loans at low interest, and suggested that the matter might stand 

 over for the present. I should, however, like to draw attention 

 to the system of Co-operative Credit Organisations, upon which 



