FORESTRY EDUCATION : ITS IMPORTANCE AND REQUIREMENTS. 3 I 



the reasons for the failure of a crop which, as far as human fore- 

 thought was capable of doing, had been given every chance. 

 How much sound practical knowledge and observation have 

 been lost to the foresters all over the world by this regrettable 

 neglect to place upon record their failures. Almost more 

 valuable are they to record than the successes. To the forester 

 far more valuable. This is one of the spots upon which the 

 scientific forester can place a finger in the British Isles. Had 

 one a full, or even a partial, record of all the failures of the 

 past, how much simpler would be the task at present facing the 

 nation of setting its forestry house in order. 



But a knowledge of situation, soil, temperature and moisture 

 requirements of the tree will not suffice the forester who wishes 

 to bring his crop from seedling stage to the axe. He must be a 

 doctor, and must be able to diagnose the diseases to which his 

 trees are liable ; or I will say that he must have knowledge 

 sufficient to be able to recognise the first appearance of a 

 disease, whether it be one of the fungus pests to which all tree- 

 life appears to be subject, or one of the insect plagues, which, if 

 left unchecked, may result in the loss of the major part if not of 

 the whole of his crop. It would probably be impossible to estimate 

 the minimum losses to the timber supply of the world from these 

 causes alone. Dr Hopkins, the Forest Entomological expert of 

 the American Government, has estimated the annual loss to 

 America, from insect attacks to timber and forest produce, at 

 something like 100,000,000 dollars. 



There can be little doubt that the greater the ability possessed 

 by the forester to recognise these dangers to his trees, when they 

 first make their appearance, the greater will be the immunity of 

 his crop from them. The greater number commence at a centre 

 and spread from that point. If the forester is able to detect 

 such a commencement and deal with it at once, he will stamp 

 out the disease and save his woods. Surely then we would all 

 rather have such a man in charge of our woods than one without 

 the knowledge. We require the specialist in all these diseases 

 to aid the forester, but the specialist must depend entirely on 

 the forester for information on these attacks; for the foresters 

 are many in number but the specialists few. How often is 

 it that the specialist is called in only when the attack has 

 assumed such dimensions that the difficulty of stamping it out 

 is not only very great, but also very costly. And there is no 



