322 REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON FORESTRY. 
similar school would be arranged in Edinburgh.” —‘“ You think that 
would be suited for practical work?” ‘Certainly, I think the in- 
struction would be practical; and if you had your lecture-room con- 
tiguous to the forest you could give both descriptions of instruc- 
tion; but you must have the forest handy.”—‘“ But suppose you 
had your lectures in Edinburgh, where could you take your young 
mento?” That would be the difficulty, unless any of the large 
landowners near Edinburgh would give up a forest to be managed 
in that way, as has been done by the great landowners in Bohemia, 
where the conditions are very much analogous.” 
“You think it is essential to a school of forestry to have attached 
to it a reserve forest as a schoolof study?” “ It is absolutely neces- 
sary. I think a mere teaching school is entirely useless.. I do not 
think that the young men who would go there would believe in it ; 
the theoretical instruction goes in at one ear and out at the other 
when unaccompanied by any practical illustration.” —“ In France is 
there any difficulty in obtaining such reserve forests?” ‘‘ No; be- 
cause the bulk of the forests belong to the Government. The 
Nancy school has a great part of the forest above Nancy, two 
divisions of it, absolutely at its disposal, with some oak forests 
ten or twelve miles off.” —“ In France is there any obligation upon 
the owners of woods and forests to place their woods at the dis- 
posal of the schools of forestry for the purpose of instruction?” 
‘No, except by courtesy. We have frequently been into private 
forests, but always by the courtesy of the owner.” 
“‘T think you have said that any establishment at Cooper’s Hill 
would not meet the wants of Scotland?” ‘It is too far off.”’— 
“« And you hinted at the establishment of a similar forestry school 
somewhere in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh?” ‘“ Yes.’”—* An 
essential necessity for that would be a reserve forest of some 3000 
or 4000 acres. You have made yourself acquainted with the 
management of some of the large forests in Scotland—Lord Sea- 
field’s you have mentioned, and Lord Lovat’s—am I to understand 
that they are tvo far distant from your headquarters, supposing they 
were at Edinburgh, or are Lord Mansfield’s, or the Duke of Athole’s, 
sufficiently accessible to answer your purpose?” ‘They are any of 
them sufficiently accessible ; they are quite sufficiently near to be 
utilised. The only convenience of having a forest belonging to the 
school is, I think, that no forest is really capable of being properly 
used for instruction unless it is under the command of the forest 
officer ; he must be able to transform it in any way he likes. The 
difficulty in respect to a Scottish forest school seems to be, that 
