ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT, AUGUST 5, 1884. rG 
Aberdeen, and other places, to arrange for large parties coming 
for one or two days. I am often surprised by the questions put 
to me by intelligent workmen visiting the building, who are evi- 
dently seeking information, and it is my belief that much useful 
knowledge may be communicated to all classes of the people. 
There is little doubt that the present Exhibition will give an 
impetus to a more systematic forest education both in Scotland 
and elsewhere. Improved tools, instruments, working plans, 
valuation surveys, and the like, will be introduced. In these 
days our foresters must take care that our Continental neighbours 
do not outstrip them in the march of improvement and in general 
details relating to production of timber, economy of management, 
and despatch of business. In some European countries the edu- 
cation and training of foresters is of a highly scientific character, 
and the whole wooded area has been managed for centuries with 
systematic care and skill. 
The authorities of the India Office have decided, after much con- 
sideration, to discontinue the system of training on the Continent 
our young men for Forest service, and henceforth the resources 
within our own borders will be utilised for the education of Forest 
candidates. The Royal Engineering College, Cooper’s Hill, Staines, 
is the place selected in the first instance, where a thoroughly good 
teaching staff already exists; and the proximity of the Royal 
Gardens at Kew will be of great advantage to the students. 
As the Marquis of Lothian well remarked at the opening, we 
have in Edinburgh many concurrent advantages—the University, 
the Botanical Gardens, the Arboretum, and the Highland Society. 
Oue thing only is needed in addition—a tract of forest reserved 
for systematic management and professional instruction. 
There will be a great mass of valuable material at the close of 
the Exhibition which should be utilised in Edinburgh for purposes 
of instruction ; and our long desired hope for a Forest School 
may be one result of this movement. In this way the recom- 
mendation of the French Professors of Forestry, who visited 
Britain two years ago, would be carried out ; and as a result of 
the International Exhibition, we should have the establishment 
of a Forest School in Edinburgh, 
Before leaving this subject, I desire to allude to the presence 
among us this day of several Indian Forest officers,* three of whom 
have been students at the Ecole Forestitre, Nancy. And Iam sure 
* Messrs Shuttleworth, Fry, Fuchs, and Wroughton. 
