l8o TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



25. Continental Notes — Germany. 



By Bert. Ribbentrop, CLE. 



At present, when the training of foresters in England has 

 become a national and imperial question, it may probably 

 interest your readers to know what is happening in this respect 

 in Germany, where a controversy regarding the education and 

 training of officers for the higher grades of the forest services 

 has, throughout the past year, excited considerable interest in 

 professional circles. The contending parties agree that a pro- 

 longed course of practical forest work, in addition to mere 

 excursions, must, at one period or other, form an essential part 

 of the training ; but whereas one of the opposing parties 

 advocates an entire university education, the other is in favour 

 of retaining the instruction in sciences and technical subjects 

 at the existing forest academies, to be preceded by a year's 

 lectures at a university in political economy, law, and other 

 subjects not so fully taught at the technical high schools. 



In the beginning of 1907 the fight threatened to become 

 a heated one. A number of letters, professedly from Prussia, 

 till now considered the stronghold of the forest-academical 

 party, had appeared in the Forst und Jagd Zeifu?ig and in 

 some other of the newer technical publications, criticising the 

 existing departmental education at the forest high schools, 

 and calling for radical changes. The letters were anonymous, 

 and eventually led to a very angry retort in the interest of 

 Eberswalde. However, the heat evaporated, and all further 

 discussions were conducted with the dignity that the importance 

 of the subject demands. 



The first official meeting of the rival parties took place in 

 Berlin during the twelfth sitting of the Council of Forest 

 Management (Forst-Wirthschaft-Rath) in February 1907. The 

 meeting was attended by forty-five official members of the 

 committee, drawn from all parts of Germany, and by special 

 delegates deputed by the State forest administrations of Prussia 

 and most of the other important States of the empire, clearly 

 indicating that the question under discussion was considered 

 to be one of vital importance. 



The leaders of the rival camps were Professor Dr Enders 



