250 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY, 
are, and not as they ought to be, and this is where the home course is superior, for 
no high ideal of forestry is attainable from books, and it is the spectacle of a 
German or French forest intensely worked, which leaves an ineradicable 
impression on the forest probationer, and the probationer of to-day will be 
helping to mould the forest policy of India twenty-five years hence, and his 
model will still be the finished Continental one, modified by his Indian 
experience.” 
These words should be taken to heart by all who are interested 
in British forestry, whether as landowners, factors, foresters, 
teachers, or the authorities of institutions where forestry is 
taught. The words, used with regard to India, apply with 
equal or even greater force to our own country. In the pre- 
ceding Note it has been said that practical training abroad is 
at present necessary for degree students and for others who may 
follow the higher courses; and it is hoped that our Society’s 
Excursions abroad may be repeated from time to time, to enable 
our younger foresters, who have not yet had the opportunity of 
doing so, to see systematically-managed woods of middle to 
mature age, and thus to realise the results which such manage- 
ment leads to. But the urgent necessity for early provision 
of practical training grounds in this country is obvious. 
F. B. 
EDUCATIONAL EXCURSIONS. 
During the past year, the first of a series of annual excursions 
was made to forests in Germany by a party of students from the 
Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester. They visited several 
State forests in the Oberforsterei of Darmstadt; also the well-known 
oak and pine woods at Viernheim, the extensive coppice in the 
Odenwald which is now undergoing conversion into High Forest, 
and some of the woods near Heidelberg. In this country, Lord 
Bathurst has generously placed his large woods, which almost 
adjoin Cirencester, at the disposal of the college authorities for 
instructional purposes. In addition to these woods, the students 
will visit the water-catchment areas of the Birmingham and of 
the Liverpool Corporations in Wales, which are now being planted 
up;- also the Berkeley and Colesborne woods, the Forest of 
Dean, and the Brocklesby woods in Lincolnshire. 
: E,. B, 
