324 REPORY OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON FORESTRY. 
sufficient for the exemplification of the lectures?” ‘* Yes.”— 
‘That could be procured at Cooper's Hill, could it not?”  “ Yes, 
subject to the approval of the Crown, because they are Crown 
forests. I only make the suggestion. I have no idea whatever 
whether the Crown would be willing to place that forest at the 
disposal of the forest school; but I sugyest that if it were pos- 
sible to obtain 3000 or 4000 acres of the forest which lie outside 
Windsor Park, the practical teaching of the lectures would be suffi- 
ciently provided for.”—“ For that reason you would prefer Cooper’s 
Hill to the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester, as suggested 
by Mr Biddulph?” “Simply for this reason, that you have the 
Cooper’s Hill professor, whose business it is to be there; and I 
should think that for a reasonable remuneration you might obtain 
his services ; and he, on the other hand, would be glad to have a 
forest to which he could take bis pupils.” 
“You think that the science of the question bearing upon the larch 
disease would be well brought out in a school of forestry?” “ I think 
it would be one of the most useful things.”—‘‘ And then you think 
that our foresters, who are not generally highly-educated men, would 
learn sufficient scientific knowledge to enable them to put it prac- 
tically to a good effect in smaller woodlands, distinguishing wood- 
lands from the larger area of a forest?” ‘I should only give the 
foresters a very moderate amount of what I should call scientific 
training. I should only teach them the A BC of the conditions 
under which trees grow, and then I should take them to the forest 
and show them the way the trees grow ; that would be an enormous 
advantage. If you take our forest men, you will see that in 
numberless cases they cut off the arms of trees, leaving long snags, 
which everybody ought to knew is about the worst thing that can 
be done, because a hollow forms where water lodges, which works 
to the trunk, and tends to the decay of the tree. But if you talk 
to nine woodmen out of ten in this country, they will argue that 
they have always done that, and that it is the right thing ; whereas 
the experience they have had ought to have shown them to the 
contrary.” —‘“* The arms ought to be cut off flat?” ‘ They ought 
to be cut off flush. We have at the school at Nancy a complete 
set of specimens, showing the effect of the different ways of amputa- 
ting the arms of trees; five minutes’ glance at that would show 
you the truth of what I have stated. These were sections cut out 
of trees, showing where the snags had been left in, where they had 
been cut shorter, and where they had been cut straight, and the 
