144 REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON FORESTRY. 
“‘ Are we to understand that you would think it absolutely neces- 
sary, in order to train men to this system of cutting and removing 
the timber, that they should visit at stated periods of the year some 
of the great French or German forests!” ‘To get complete 
instruction, yes; but they might learn a lot of useful knowledge 
without going there.” 
“Do you attach very great importance to the establishment of a 
forest school in this country, having regard to the state of our 
forests ?” “Certainly. If possible it ought to supply a kind of 
education which would reach as low as possible; that is to say, as 
low a class of officials as possible, so that the wood managers and 
the smallest paid men should be able to attend. I think that is 
very important. Perhaps I might be allowed to add that there are 
a number of bodies who are interested in the instruction and 
education of land agents, and I think it would be a great thing to 
interest them in the question also. At present the Surveyor’s 
‘Institution, I believe, does something in the way of instructing its 
pupils in forestry, and if they were interested in the question of 
education, they would probably bring their pupils to the school and 
send them through it.”—“‘ Are there not in a great many of the 
Scottish forests young foresters very well practically instructed in 
the management of timber for commercial purposes?” “If you 
were to say practically very well instructed, I should say not ; but 
there are many of them exceedingly intelligent men, who, by rule 
of thumb and by the experience which has been handed dewn to 
them, have learned the system of planting and growing trees 
exceedingly well. And that I think was also the impression of the 
French foresters who came over with me, that in those respects they 
had nothing very much to teach them, and certainly it was of 
myself. But there are points on which knowledge is required. In 
one forest, in which a great number of trees were blown down (we 
saw a great number on the ground), we were certainly of opinion 
that the damage might have been saved by a fringe of birch, which 
would have grown perfectly well above the Scots fir. They 
ought to have been planted to keep the wind out of the ravines, 
but instead of that they planted Scots fir right up the top of the 
ravines, the wind got amongst them, and knocked them down like 
a field of corn.”—“ Like spillikins, as a Scottish proprietor de- 
scribed itto me?” ‘“ Yes, we certainly thought that a fringe of birch 
would have grown perfectly well at the top of the hill, and if it 
had been planted above the Scots fir, it would have kept the wind 
