320 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
XXX. Training of Foresters. 
By J. Parry, M.Inst.C.E. 
With reference to a letter which appeared in the Zzmes of 21st 
March, the Hon. Editor has been good enough to call my 
attention to an address delivered by the late Earl of Mansfield 
at the Annual Meeting of the Society in January 1900. In that 
Address, which I had not previously seen, his Lordship advocated 
a distinction being drawn between youths employed in forestry, 
and those who are never likely to be, or to desire to be, more 
than ordinary estate labourers, and he suggested a system of 
three years’ apprenticeship, on the termination of which the 
apprentices should be entitled to a certificate. 
Now I have already commenced on a small scale, both at 
Rivington, in Lancashire, and at Vyrnwy, in Montgomeryshire, 
a system of apprenticeship on the lines suggested in my letter to 
the Zimes. And my immediate difficulty is how to provide those 
boys with suitable technical training. There is no technical 
school within convenient reach to which they could go for 
instruction in the evening, and their parents are too poor to pay 
for an occasional term at a technical school distant from their 
place of abode. The same difficulty will arise all over the 
country, and a solution must be found if forestry is to make the 
progress we all desire. 
It appears to me that something may be done in this direction 
with the assistance of the Education Department, without waiting 
for the carrying out of the larger and more ambitious scheme of 
a Central Board with its ramifications. The Board of Education 
is at the present time in a progressive mood, and there are 
Members of the Cabinet who are known to be in hearty sympathy 
with afforestation. If important bodies like the Royal Scottish 
and English Arboricultural Societies would unite in recommending 
a practical scheme which would not involve new machinery or 
increased expenditure, I see no reason to doubt the willingness 
of the Government to assist in carrying it out. 
[For the Address by the late Earl of Mansfield to which Mr Parry refers, see 
Vol. XVI. p. 156. See also Vol. XVIII. p. 51, ‘‘Conference on Forestry 
Education,” and the section ‘‘ Forestry Education” at p. 3 of the Society’s 
Proceedings which form part of that volume, 
We welcome the expression of Mr Parry’s views on this important question. 
His letter to the 7zmes is given below.—Hon. EpDITor. ] 
