30 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



It is as yet far too early to expect to have the full results of 

 the Committee's recommendations. Up to the present, however, 

 on the part of the State, the practical outcome has been that the 

 Commissioners of Woods and Forests have taken steps on a 

 small scale for the instruction of woodmen in the Forest of Dean, 

 the men each week working on four days and receiving instruction 

 on two days; while the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries has 

 made two grants, each of ^250 per annum, for the establishment 

 of Lectureships in Forestry at the Durham College of Science 

 ■(Newcastle-on-Tyne) and the University College of Bangor, in 

 North Wales. 



Private enterprise has at the same time inaugurated a Chair 

 of Forestry and Estate Management at the Royal Agricultural 

 College, Cirencester, to which Earl Bathurst's adjacent woods 

 have been made available for educational purposes; while a 

 Lecturer on Forestry has also been appointed at the S.E. 

 Agricultural College at Wye, in Kent. A short course of 

 Lectures on Forestry is also given at St Andrews University. 



A new departure in State policy has also been instituted with 

 regard to woodlands in Ireland. Under Section 4 of the Irish 

 Land Act, 1903, powers were given for enabling Government to 

 make arrangements for " the planting of trees, or the preservation 

 ■of . . . woods or plantations," and for retaining, in their own 

 hands, woodlands and waste lands suitable for planting on 

 ■estates acquired by purchase under the Act. And as a first step 

 towards the improvement of Forestry in Ireland, and perhaps 

 also towards the formation of extensive plantations, the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture and Technical Instruction has acquired the 

 Avondale estate (Rathdrum, County Wicklow, formerly the 

 residence of the late Mr C S. Parnell, M.P.) and the adjoining 

 Ballyfad woods as the nucleus for a Practical School of Forestry. 



Several of the County Councils, both in England and Scotland, 

 "have also encouraged lectures on Forestry, and on 17 th December 

 1904 the Irish Forestry Society resolved to inaugurate an Arbor 

 Day for Ireland. 



The future prospects of Forestry in Britain are therefore 

 ■decidedly brighter and more hopeful than they were fifty years 

 ago. The apathy and retrogression prevailing up till about 1880 

 have become converted, in some influential quarters, into interest 

 and desire for real and practical progress ; and our Society has, 

 "both directly and indirecdy, had no small share in contributing 

 towards the decided advance made in the last few years. 



