notes and queries. 1 69 



Forestry and Schoolboys. 



A considerable amount of really useful work has been done in 

 forestry by schoolboys during the past year (cf. p. 162). As 

 experience has been gained, the enthusiasm of the volunteers 

 and the efficiency of their work has increased. There is in 

 forestry an almost unlimited amount of useful and urgent 

 work to be done at the present time. Many kinds of this 

 work can be done by boys, and there is practically no 

 operation, no matter how heavy or skilled the nature of 

 the work may be, in which they cannot, at least, render 

 valuable assistance. Boys take readily to work in the forest, 

 and enjoy it thoroughly ; it would, further, be difficult to find 

 a more healthful and congenial environment for them than 

 the forest. After a few lessons they very soon acquire the 

 necessary proficiency in the work, whether it be felling, snedding, 

 and cross-cutting timber, or planting young trees, or any of the 

 varied forms of nursery work which require manipulation, skill 

 and dexterity. After a few lessons or demonstrations by a 

 skilled forester, a small amount of oversight and guidance is all 

 that remains necessary to ensure that their labour is used to the 

 best advantage. The employment of schoolboys, also, cannot 

 fail to be productive of useful results from an educational point 

 of view. One has only to think how few of the present 

 generation have the faintest notion of what forestry really 

 means to a country. The war has demonstrated, in such a way 

 as nothing else could have done, that an adequate timber 

 reserve is of vital importance ; but how many people are aware 

 of the amount of labour and skill which was necessary to 

 produce our present woods, such as they are ? A great many 

 people seem to imagine that our forests, like say our coal mines, 

 have been produced by nature, ready for exploitation by man. 

 While there is a certain amount of justification for this 

 conception, the fact is entirely overlooked that the natural 

 reserves in coal are strictly limited to what nature has already 

 provided, but the forest will continue to yield timber, in ever- 

 increasing volume, for all time to come, in direct proportion to 

 the skill and intelligence exercised in the exploitation of its 

 resources. 



The trees which are now being cut must be replaced as soon 

 as possible, otherwise the denuded areas will suffer from soil 



