340 REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON FORESTRY. 
Scottish forest?” ‘It would be a very great advantage to a 
Scottish forester to have some months’ instruction in a college— 
there can be no question about that; but it would be also desirable 
to have training in Scottish forests to learn the application of the 
principles he had acquired to the woods he had to deal with.” 
“In regard to the waste that is going on abroad, is it your opinion 
that the value of wood will increase in this country?” “ Much will 
depend on the value of iron, and the extent to which it can be used 
instead of wood. One reason why so little attention has been given 
to scientific forestry in Britain, as compared with the Continent, is 
that we have fuel apart from wood at command, which they have 
not. We have timber brought from all countries, and valuable 
woods from all nations freely introduced ; and therefore there has 
been no necessity for the same amount of attention being given to 
the subject here. With regard to the relative price of home-grown 
timber and foreign timber, that is largely dependent upon the 
expense of transport. In illustration of the expense of transport to 
the Cape of Good Hope, I may mention that we could get timber 
from the Baltic at less expense than we could bring it from Table 
Mountain at the back of the city.”—“ May we take it as a fact that 
good wood, whether from our Colonies or elsewhere, is decreasing 
very rapidly?” ‘It is decreasing very rapidly, and the effect is not 
only loss of wood, but also an injurious effect upon the humidity of 
the atmosphere.” —“ Is it your opinion that in a few years, if iron is 
produced very much at the same rate it is now, and other things 
part passu, wood will become very much more valuable in this 
country than itis now?” ‘T have no doubt it will, from the dimi- 
nished supply ; and there are many purposes to which wood can be 
put to which iron is not now applied.”—‘ You spoke about various 
places where a school of forestry might be started. For example, 
you mentioned the Arboricultural Society of Scotland: would you 
think that that was the best institution to which to affiliate a branch 
of the School of Forestry; would it be better than the University of 
Edinburgh?” “My idea is, that the School of Forestry in Edinburgh 
does not require for the benefit of the students to have any other 
affiliated with it; there would be no difficulty in getting all the 
experience and observation that is required in those forests without 
there being a separate school of forestry established elsewhere.” — 
“Then you do not consider that it would be of advantage to ally a 
school of forestry with the Highland and Agricultural Society 1” 
«‘T do not think it would. Ido not think that a school of forestry 
