REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON FORESTRY. 341 
can be established in Scotland at present by private individuals ; 
it is necessary that some corporate body should take it up. On 
many accounts I think it would be advisable that the Government 
should take it up rather than the Highland and Agricultural 
Society or the Arboricultural Society, or any existing organisation.” 
—“ Have you formed any idea as to the probable expense of such 
an undertaking ; how much the Government would be called upon 
to contribute?” ‘TI consider that the cheapest arrangement 
would be one connected with the Watt Institute, towards which 
the Government would not be called upon to contribute anything ; 
but then there is the want of prestige, and I refer to the effect of 
prestige in preventing distinguished teachers getting pupils, and 
getting employment for the pupils when once they have passed 
through the course. The cheapest arrangement, combined with 
prestige, would be the establishment of a professorship in the 
University, because then we would have a definite sum, and we 
could not go beyond it. It would be more expensive, I believe, 
having a school of forestry organised in connection with the 
Committee of Council on Education; but it need not be much 
more expensive at first. The great expense would be, when once 
it has been seen, as I have no doubt it will be seen in a year or 
two years, that it is desirable to go on increasing the training staff.” 
—‘ But you have no doubt that a professor in the University of 
Edinburgh would answer the present purposes?” ‘ A great deal 
would depend upon the professor. You have no security that 
you would have a professor with the necessary encyclopedic infor- 
mation to succeed the first or the second professor, and there is 
very great danger of the professorship degenerating into a mere 
respectable sinecure. There is less risk of that, I consider, in 
connection with the Council of Education.”—‘‘ You would hardly 
expect, from a practical point of view, a forester who had not had 
any great training in this way, except practically, to attend classes 
in Edinburgh over a space of three years?” ‘‘ Hence the advantage 
of having what I may call an experimental or tentative course of 
lectures for one year and seeing what could be done, and then 
entering upon a larger course subsequently if this be found 
successful.”—“ It is your opinion that they could get sufficient 
information in the course of one year’s lectures independently of 
the practical experience in the forest?” ‘“ They would get the 
scientific information, with illustrations of its practical application.” 
—‘“ Then you propose that they should go into the practical work 
