220 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
somewhat tardily accorded. However, better late than never. 
As now reorganised, the sanctioned scale of appointments 
provides from 6th January 1906 for :—. 
Rupees per Month. 
1 Inspector-General, ‘ - ona salary of 2650 
2 Chief Conservators (Burma and Coe a oe 2150 
6 of I. Grade, ¥ 1900 
19 Conservators, : : 7 Of OL eee 5 1700 
oiohIlin as a 1500 
136 Deputy Conservators, : - : Commencing with a salary 
72 Assistant Conservators,  . . | of Rs.380a month, rising by 
9 Foreign Service Appointments (4 temporary), | annual increments of Rs. 40 
I Assistant Inspector-General, : a month to Rs. 700; and 
5 Officers at Imperial Forest College aia after that by increments of 
Research Institute, Dehra Dan (who each | Rs. 50 a month to Rs. 1250 
draw in addition a special allowance of |in the twentieth year of 
Rs, 150 a month), : - . | service. 
These are very substantial increases of salary, which remove a 
well-founded Departmental grievance of several years’ standing, 
although the question of improved pension for the two lower 
grades of Conservator is still unsettled. But what had perhaps 
quite as much as the handsome revenue to do with obtaining 
this improvement in pay was the fact that the last year’s com- 
petitive examination, advertised for nineteen vacancies, was a com- 
plete failure. For the first time since the institution of this system 
(in 1867) there was an almost total lack of candidates. So com- 
petition was abolished, and selection by an advisory committee 
took its place: and this gave the India Office food for thought. 
The very unnecessarily expensive three years’ course of training at 
Oxford is still in vogue, and will remain so till 1909, but the 
Secretary of State is bound by a formal promise (made in his name 
in the House of Lords by the Under Secretary, the Marquis of 
Bath, in March 1905) to reconsider his orders about this in March 
1908. After that it may perhaps be possible that desirable changes 
may be made for procuring suitable training for probationers 
at a much smaller cost of their time and money than at present. 
If it be possible, as actually is the case, to train Indian civil 
servants in a twelvemonth’s time, and to obtain civil engineers, 
and educational and scientific officers ready to proceed at once 
to India, it should not be impossible to obtain fairly well-equipped 
foresters, now that forestry is taught at several universities and 
at most agricultural colleges. 
This important question of the training of probationers for the 
