212 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
hardly be avoided, especially as the practical instruction given to 
the students would necessarily often take the form of a criticism of 
the latter’s work. 
Tue Forest ScHOOL IN EDINBURGH. 
If we had a sufficiently large area of State forests in Scotland, 
with a proportionately strong staff of Government wood-managers, 
a State Forest School, such as the above, would be a necessity; but 
existing circumstances hardly appear to warrant the immediate 
foundation of an independent school, at which, in addition to 
forestry proper, the necessary auxiliary subjects, such as botany, 
chemistry, geology and mineralogy, entomology, engineering, etc., 
must be taught by a special staff of instructors. Candidates for 
the Indian State Forest Service will continue to be trained at 
Coopers Hill; and although an independent forest school in Scotland 
would no doubt receive support from young men seeking Colonial 
appointments, the number of these and of students who might 
be expected, at the present time, to enter it with a view to 
employment in this country, would not be sufficient to provide 
funds for the maintenance of an independent establishment. 
The only plan now feasible seems to be to teach forestry in 
some university or college, where instruction in subjects necessary 
to the complete understanding of the course is already obtain- 
able: and this is what is now being done in Edinburgh. It is 
true that such an arrangement has many important drawbacks. 
First of all, it is not to be expected that the Model Forest, in which 
the practical part of the course is given, can be situated in close 
proximity to the class-rooms, where the students assemble to hear 
lectures. And again, in a university or college, the auxiliary 
subjects are necessarily taught without that special reference to 
forestry which is so desirable, and which can only be secured at a 
special school. In such an institution students would be taught 
forest botany and forest entomology; geology and mineralogy 
would be treated with special regard to the formation and _ pro- 
perties of soil in reference to tree growth; chemistry in relation to 
the nutrition of plants, and the utilisation of forest produce ; and 
the engineering course would deal with simple surveying, timber 
measurement, the construction of forest roads, bridges and build- 
ings, with saw-mills, forest tramways, timber slides and other 
labour-saving means of moving timber, rather than with engineer- 
ing in its general aspect. Education of this highly specialised 
