ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT, NOVEMBER 6, 1877. 201 



its bearings and details, that to you who have read his pamphlet 

 there is little left for me to say. But I am anxious, with the 

 authority which belongs to any one, whoever he may be, who 

 occupies the post of President of your Society, to endorse and 

 enforce what he has so well begun. I do not say that it will be 

 an easy thing to obtain recognition from Government as to this 

 necessity. I have been long enough connected with the Treasury 

 to know that in this country where any demand on the public 

 purse has to pass the ordeal of parliamentary criticism, and where 

 the prevailing idea of the Government is to keep down the esti- 

 mates, it is not till after many years of pressing application, and 

 till public opinion is brought to bear, that the public purse-strings 

 are drawn. This is one great difficulty in the way, and the other 

 is, that whatever may be the case in India and the colonies, we 

 have at home no great forests under the charge of Government 

 as is the case in most continental countries, and that this makes 

 it difficult to arrange for the practical education of foresters. 

 Still, in spite of these difficulties and drawbacks, I cannot but 

 think that in a country like this, with so many dependencies and 

 colonies, where a knowledge of the science of forestry is necessary, 

 not only for the protection of forests from destruction, but for 

 the maintenance of that balance between woodland and open 

 ground which is so necessary to preserve proper climatic con- 

 ditions, it is essential that a school of forestry should be estab- 

 lished. Sir Joseph Hooker, writing on this subject, says, that on 

 the Continent forestry holds a distinguished place among the 

 branches of a liberal education. Schools of forestry exist in 

 Prussia, Saxony, Hanover, Wurteruberg, Bavaria, Austria, Poland, 

 Russia, Finland, Sweden, France, Italy, and Spain. Although 

 we have no great forests in this country, we require trained 

 foresters in India and in many of our colonies. I need not, after 

 the subject has been so exhaustively treated, go into further 

 details, but merely say that it is the duty of this Society to 

 endeavour to awake intelligent interest in this question, and I 

 for one shall be glad to do all that I can in and out of Parlia- 

 ment to further so praiseworthy an object. 



I could have wished further to illustrate the necessity for good 

 schools for forestry by what is now taking place in India. The 

 wanton destruction of forests in that country has been going on for 

 years. This is a point which has been most ably and constantly 

 treated in his addresses by Dr Cleghorn, than whom there can be no 



