ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT, AUGUST 9, 1892. 305 
co-operate to make the working of the scheme of education a 
practical success. 
You know the essence of the scheme. Whilst educating 
foresters in the necessary sciences, work will be found for them 
in the Botanic Garden, and I hope elsewhere about Edinburgh. 
You may ask then what is to be our next step towards making _ 
this teaching a reality? We are all agreed, I take it, as to what 
we propose to do, to educate foresters in the sciences underlying 
their profession, and we have then two important points now to 
determine,—(1) When is the teaching to begin, and how is it to 
be conducted ? and (2) under what regulations are foresters to be 
admitted to the instruction ? 
I am glad of this opportunity to say something upon these 
heads, in order that through this Society young foresters through- 
out the country may become acquainted with our proposals :— 
As to the date of beginning- and the method of the course: 
I think October will be a convenient month in which to open 
the course of instruction. The present and next month are 
emphatically holiday months, and I should hore that by October 
it would be possible to arrange all preliminary matters. I 
have already been able to arrange for the teaching of several of 
the subjects proposed for the curriculum, and having secured as 
lecturers in several instances the assistants to the professors in 
the University, I am assured that the teaching will be of a most 
satisfactory kind. It will of course be our endeavour to make 
the instruction of as practical a character as possible, and the 
times of lecture and work will be so arranged that they will not 
interfere with the usual hours of labour, 
With regard to the second point :— Whatever rules are framed, 
they must be of a kind that will admit the right men, and 
will exclude the men who will not profit by the course. But it 
is not easy at the initiation of a scheme such as this to lay down 
definite rules, inasmuch as we have no means of estimating to 
what extent the opportunity we offer will, in the first instance, 
be taken advantage of, and it is evident that the number of men 
who can be taken on the staff of the Garden must be limited. 
But this is just one of these matters in which I look, and I am 
sure with justification, to the co-operation of members of the 
Society. This Society having given its imprimatur to the scheme, 
and nurserymen of Edinburgh having signified their willingness 
to aid in carrying it into effect, I have no doubt that a large 
