28 TRANSACTIONS OF ROVAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



shown eye object-lessons of what he is told. He should be 

 shown in the woods what he is told in the lecture room, and 

 taught to observe for himself — that first and most important of 

 the lessons of a forester. These first principles of the education 

 of a forestry student are well understood on the Continent, and 

 are adequately provided for. 



I will give two instances out of many. The German Forestry 

 Academy of Tharandt is situated not far from Dresden in 

 Saxony. The school is provided with a forest garden and 

 demonstration forest, forming a compact block in its immediate 

 vicinity. The forest garden is situated on a hillside immediately 

 behind the school. The hillside is terraced into beds which 

 contain some 1800 different species of trees, shrubs, perennials 

 and annuals of various kinds, both indigenous and exotic. This 

 garden serves as a forestry and botanical garden and is an 

 exceptionally fine one, covering an area of about 18 hectares. 

 There is a forest nursery in the garden managed on most 

 up-to-date lines. For instance, rare exotic seedlings, or those 

 difficult to grow, are raised in seed-beds placed in brick cells 

 covered with a wire-mesh frame-work which secure an entire 

 immunity from the attacks of insect pests. Very few of the 

 seedlings raised in these beds are lost. There are some glass 

 houses in the garden in which experiments in connection with 

 the grafting of conifers were being carried out at the time of 

 my visit. 



The school demonstration forests adjoin the forest garden 

 and are kept up entirely for educational and demonstration 

 purposes. They are situated in a hilly area presenting ever- 

 varying conditions, aspects and variations in soil, thus allowing 

 of a variety of object-lessons with different species and mixtures 

 being presented to the student. For example, these woods 

 contain spruce and beech with birch in mixture ; spruce and 

 silver fir, or the two latter with birch. Or again, there are woods 

 of spruce, beech, Scots pine, silver fir, larch, maple, birch with 

 maple, and various mixtures, ash (pure about thirty years old), 

 alder (in wet valleys), oak, and a little ^sculus. There are some 

 most interesting mixtures to be seen doing remarkably well, 

 and forming an ideal of what demonstration woods should be. 

 The steep slopes of the hillsides are worked under different 

 silvicultural systems to the area of tableland above, where the 

 woods are clear cut and naturally regenerated, or sown or 



