REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON FORESTRY. Sul! 
forest instruction would render them much more valuable as 
forest officers?” “I have no doubt it would.”—‘ You think 
that even if they went for a three months’ course, that would give 
them, though not complete instruction, still an amount of instruc- 
tion which would be extremely valuable?” ‘* Whether a course 
of three months would do that, I am not prepared to say. The 
curriculum for men of that class would have to be to a very large 
extent of a practical nature ; we would do best for that class of 
men by letting them work, as it were, in a sort of sample or 
pattern forest, and augmenting that by a series of simple lectures 
upon the most’ important subjects; as, for instance, a certain 
amount of botany, and a certain number of lectures on the 
principal sylvicultural subjects and the system of management 
generally. What I mean to say is, that it would be essential that 
a great portion of their training should be of a practical turn, and 
that therefore to do it without a forest immediately accessible 
would be simply impossible.”—‘“‘ Are you aware that there are a 
great number of landowners in this country who have a certain 
amount of woodlands, but not a very extensive amount, and that 
therefore it would not be worth their while to employ any person 
at a high salary, but who yet have to employ wood-reeves and 
wood-bailiffs ; and from the answer you have just given it seems 
that the practical instruction to which you have referred would 
be of considerable value?” ‘‘ Yes. If I were an owner of woods 
in England myself, and wanted a man of that class, I should, in 
the present state of affairs, probably send him as an apprentice 
for some time to one of those shrewd Scottish wood-managers ; 
or if there were a suitable school to which a forest was attached, 
which was managed in a satisfactory way, I should send him 
there for a time, so as to let him get a certain amount of theo- 
retical instruction.”—‘* Would you kindly supply the Committee 
with a rather more detailed statement as to the mode in which 
you would suggest that a forest school should be organised, having 
regard in the first place to the higher grade, and secondly, to the 
requirements of wood-reeves and wood-bailiffs?” ‘‘I shall be 
most happy to supply that.” 
* You have spoken of an area of 2,000,000 acres in Ireland as 
suitable for planting ; what is the general nature of that ground ; 
does it include bog?” ‘ Yes, to a considerable extent.”—“ There 
is a great deal of bog which is unsuitable for planting, is there 
not?” “Yes, there is, but there is also a great deal that is suit- 
VOL, XI., PART III. 2B 
