REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON FORESTRY. 143 
or Scotland to say whether it would not be possible to carry out a 
course of practical instruction in some of these forests without having 
recourse to the French schools, against which exists the difficulty 
you have already mentioned, of the want of knowledge of the 
language?” “The only difficulty is that the English and Scottish 
forests are so young. I do not know myself one mature forest at 
the present time in England or Scotland. There is no doubt that 
a great part of the instruction might be carried out in the English 
and Scottish forests ; but besides the growth of trees, there is one 
very important part of the instruction—namely, the removal of the 
crop—which you cannot do at home, because the forests are not 
matured ; you cannot get that without going abroad for a certain 
time. You would not have to take much of a tour, but if you 
want to teach young men what concerns the removal of the timber, 
that cannot be done in this country, because it is not ripe.” —‘‘ You 
mean a proper system of laying out a forest, so as to cut it in 
certain proportions?” ‘Yes; removal with a view to reproduc- 
tion, which should be natural, no doubt ; because after you have 
once established a forest, you should never require to plant it 
again.” —“ I suppose there is no forest in this country where they 
have adopted the block system of felling and management, or the 
French system known as tire et aire?” “I saw a very good 
natural reproduction of larch in the Earl of Seafield’s forests, which 
showed me that it could be done, and also of Scots fir at Lord 
Lovat’s, whose wood manager, Mr Dewar, is a very intelligent 
man.” —“ Still, on the whole, it is substantially true that there is 
no scientific laying out of forests in England as on the Continent, 
with the view of cutting them down in successive crops?” “ Cer- 
tainly not. Ithink Mr Dewar mentioned that Lord Lovat had 
instituted the system which we have on the Continent, which, how- 
ever, was very much interfered with by the deer forests; but still 
the thing is more or less done on correct principles. He told me 
that the late Lord Lovat had instituted that system himself, and I 
have no doubt he had seen it on the Continent.”—“ But a deer 
forest has not necessarily a stick of timber in it?” ‘No. I said 
it was very much interfered with by the deer forest, because Mr 
Dewar told us that he could only go into the forest five months in 
the year, and those were the months when it was least desirable 
he should be there ; but that at the time when he wanted most 
to be there, he was prevented by the lease of the shooting from 
going in, the forest being leased to an American gentleman.”— 
