ESTABLISHMENT OF STATE MODEL FORESTS FOR SCOTLAND. 211 
laboratory; and an area of 7500 acres of forest in the neighbour- 
hood is under the control of the Director of the school as a field 
of practical instruction, as well as for purposes of experiment and 
research. In the German Empire there are eight superior State 
forest schools which are equipped on a like scale; and in nearly 
all countries of the European continent, schools of a similar kind 
are maintained for the training of officers for the Government forest 
service. A considerable portion of the Windsor Crown Forest is 
managed, for purposes of practical instruction, by the professor of 
forestry at the Indian Engineering College, Coopers Hill, near 
Windsor ; while the Forest of Dean will, it is understood, shortly 
be brought under systematic management, and will thus also 
become available for instructional uses. But the students of the 
Forest Branch at Coopers Hill College still receive a considerable 
part of their practical training in State forests of France and 
Germany, which have been subjected to rational treatment for a 
long period of years. 
Forests used as the main practical training-ground for students 
are always placed under the control of the Director of the school. 
Speaking of the area that should be provided for instructional 
purposes in this country, M. Boppe says :— 
“This accessory forest must necessarily be incomplete at first, 
but would be perfected in time; but the essential point is that 
it should be placed under the absolute control of the officers of 
the school. This can only be done by choosing a State forest. 
If it should be considered desirable, also, in order to render the 
teaching more complete, the State ought to purchase or lease in 
Scotland a forest suitable for the purpose.” The chief reason for 
this is that if the estate were managed merely as an ordinary 
forest, it might not, and almost certainly would not, serve in the 
best possible way as a field for practical instruction. To meet 
the latter requirement, work must be carried on so as not only to 
furnish an object-lesson in economic forestry, but also to illustrate 
in the fullest manner the course of lectures given to the students ; 
and on this account the work carried on in a school forest will 
always be of a more varied nature than that in an ordinary forest, 
and its details must be arranged, as far as possible, so that the 
course of theoretical ihstruction may run hand in hand with it. 
These conditions would not be fulfilled unless the Director of the 
school had control of the forest. If the control were not in his 
hands, constant friction between him and the manager could 
