NA TURE 



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THURSDAY, APRIL 5, il 



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THE FORESTRY SCHOOL AT COOPERS HILL. 



THE Forestry School at Cooper's Hill is intended in 

 the first place for the education of a certain number 

 annually of young officers for the Indian Forest Depart- 

 ment. The arrangements are, nevertheless, of such a kind 

 that private students are admitted to the forestry course, 

 in as far as space is available, and on condition that they 

 conform to the rules. 



It is in many ways advantageous that the Forestry 

 School is attached to the Royal Indian Engineering 

 College at Cooper's Hill. ' Although the course for 

 forest students is necessarily different from that designed 

 for engineering students, there are several subjects to be 

 studied in common, and consequently the present arrange- 

 ments admit of the forest students obtaining their training 

 in surveying, descriptive engineering, and mathematics, 

 for instance, in the excellent courses provided by the well- 

 known Professors in the Engineering College. 



The Forestry School itself consists of a block of 

 buildings attached to the Royal Indian Engineering 

 College, on the brow of Cooper's Hill, near Staines, and 

 looking north over Runnymede and the Valley of the 

 Thames. It is within a convenient distance from London, 

 the%aveller arriving at Egham (the nearest station on the 

 London and South- Western Railway) in from forty-five to 

 sixty minutes from Waterloo. Windsor Great Park is within 

 a mile of the beautiful and spacious grounds in which 

 the College stands, and the fine trees of all kinds to be 

 met with in the neighbourhol4(J give to the situation much 

 that is desirable for a centre ^r the teaching of forest 

 botany, and several parts can be made use of to a certain 

 extent for illustrating subjects in forestry proper. 



The building of the Forest School itself consists of 

 large and small class-rooms, a museum, and the well- 

 designed and appointed botanical laboratory. In this 

 block the students pursue their main studies — botany, 

 forestry, and entomology. Their other studies — engineer- 

 ing, surveying, mathematics, geometrical and freehand 

 drawing, physics, geology, and one 9r two other subjects 

 to be referred to presently — are pursued under the direction 

 of the various Professors in the class-rooms and labora- 

 tories of the Royal Indian Engineering College, to which 

 the Forestry School is attached. 



The forest museum is a convenient, well-lighted room, 

 rapidly filling with useful collections of specimens illus- 

 trating the chief departments of forestry. Among the 

 most valuable and conspicuous objects in this splendid 

 collection may be mentioned the series of European and 

 Indian timbers, which are so disposed that the student 

 has ready access to them, while the Professors are able to 

 refer to them in lecturing, and thus to make the teaching, 

 in the best sense of the word, practical. Then there is a 

 remarkably complete and interesting collection of imple- 

 ments used in forestry, and there are models of timber- 

 slides, apparatus for catching timber, and other forest 

 works, also so disposed that every student can handle and 

 examine them and learn their uses with facility. Another 

 valuable feature in this museum is the series of economic 

 products of Indian plants. This is of course not complete. 

 Vol XXXVII —No. 962. 



but the greatest credit is due to all concerned for bringing 

 together for such useful purposes so many instructive 

 specimens of fibres, seeds, barks, fruits, food-materials, 

 &c., from the chief representative Indian plants ; and 

 when it is remembered that the Forestry School is so 

 youi)g, in this country (it was started in September 1885), 

 it is the more praiseworthy that the authorities have made 

 such good use of their opportunities and time. The 

 collections must no doubt receive numerous additions as 

 time passes, for it is well known that a museum takes 

 many years to bring within measurable distance of com- 

 plefOhess, but the Cooper's Hill museum is already fairly 

 filled, the nucleus of the collections having been derived 

 from the late Indo-Colonial Exhibition, and from the 

 Royal Gardens, Kew. It would require too much space 

 to enumerate the remaining interesting features of these 

 instructive series of forest objects : specimens of timber 

 showing the changes due to abnorm'al growths, the healing 

 of wdunds, the various injuries produced by unsuitable 

 environment or by the attacks of insects and other living 

 organisms, and last, but by no means least, a unique 

 collection showing the ravages of those fungi which 

 injure timber-trees, collected by Prof. Robert Hartig, of 

 Munich, and presented to the School, and a collection of 

 the more injurious forest insects, presented by Herr 

 OberforStrath Judeich, of Tharand. There is also a 

 small ij^barium, of a particularly interesting character, 

 containing an excellent series of Conifers and other 

 trees. 



The botanical laboratory has just been completed, and 

 is, without doubt, one of the best designed small labora- 

 tories, for its purpose, that we have seen. It consists of 

 an oblong room running east and west, and lighted from 

 the north and east by windows arranged conveniently for 

 work with the microscope. There are also tables and 

 apparatus for experimental demonstrations in vegetable 

 physiology ; provision will exist for cultivating seedlings 

 and plants at constant temperatures, for measuring growth, 

 and for exhibiting the influence of light, gravitation, &c., 

 on the growth of plants ; and arrangements for showing 

 the quantities of water given off from transpiring leaves,, 

 for developing plants in water-cultures, &c. The students 

 are supplied with microscopes, reagents, and accessories^ 

 and are taught to familiarize themselves thoroughly 

 with all modern appliances bearing practically on their 

 studies. 



The above-mentioned block of buildings also includes 

 one small and one larger lecture-room, which are pro- 

 vided with necessary teaching appliances. The series 

 of botanical diagrams especially are remarkably good, 

 and in fact many of them are unique, being the private 

 property of the Professor of Botany, and drawn and 

 coloured by himself. Another feature which must not be 

 overlooked is the projected botanic garden. This will 

 consist of a series of seed-beds, &c., illustrating the 

 raising of forest trees, and of beds of plants chosen from 

 the most important natural families, in order that the 

 students may familiarize themselves on the spot with their 

 chief characteristics. This botanic garden is now in 

 process of being laid out, and it will be ready for the use 

 of students in a short time. 



The courses of studies fallowed by the forest students 

 are admirably adapted to the wants of practical men 



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