June 9, 1910] 



NATURE 



429 



splendid foundation. It was found that the class of 

 candidates for the forest service was falling off in 

 numbers and quality, the salaries were not sufficiently 

 attractive, and in 1905 only two candidates appeared 

 for sixteen posts, so that a system of appointment by 

 selection was adopted. The Secretary of State has 

 now raised the pay of the Indian Forest Service, and 

 allows 120Z. a year to such of the two years' proba- 

 tioners who are B.A.s with honours from any univer- 

 sity, so that this year there were sixty candidates for 

 twelve appointments. Besides insisting on the 

 qualification of an honour degree, it is essential to 

 secure that all probationers should join the Oxford 

 School of Forestr}', with a sufficient knowledge of 

 English, elementary mathematics (including trigono- 

 metry), physics, and chemistry-. During the two 

 years' course for a forestry diploma at Oxford, 

 botany, zoology, and geology can be taught, as well 

 as forestr}-, surveying, and forest law. Strange to 

 say, some' of our British universities have such an 

 imperfect entrance examination that men are allowed 

 to enter for and take honour degrees in biology- 

 or geology without necessarily knowing more than 

 the rudiments of mathematics, chemistry-, or physics, 

 and without passing any test in English. The pos- 

 session of an honour degree in science at a British 

 university is not, therefore, a sufficient qualification for 

 a forest probationer. A certain knowledge of German 

 also is very desirable for admission to the Oxford 

 School of Forestry, and this is but rarely obtainable 

 from our public-school men. Our best Oxford 

 foresters should be capable of teaching scientific and 

 practical forestry throughout the Empire. 



Although the forests of India, between 1885 and 

 1905, continued to be well managed by a devoted 

 corps of practical foresters, very little, if any, progress 

 in forest technology was made during those twenty- 

 years. In 1906, Mr. S. Eardley Wilmot, CLE., 

 Inspector-General of Forests, following the initiative 

 of his predecessor, Mr. R. C. Wroughton, estab- 

 lished a forest research institute the members 

 of which devote all their time to the study 

 of the various branches of forestry, as well 

 as to zoology, mycology, and the physics 

 and chemistry of forest products. The results 

 of this research are published in •' Indian 

 Forest Records." Vol. i., for 1909, of these records 

 contains papers on the lac insect, by E. P. Steb- 

 bing; on beetles boring in Chilgoza bark, by E. P. 

 Stebbing and Capt. E. H. James; the development 

 of Shorea rohusta in volume and money value, and 

 the selection system in Indian forests, by A. M. F. 

 Caccia; Andaman Padank, by B. B. Osmaston ; the 

 Cutch trade of Burma, by R. S. Troup; Ngai cam- 

 phor, and Burmese varnish from the sap of 

 Melanorrhoea usitata, by Puran Singh. Several 

 useful and, for the most part, elementary manuals 

 have been prepared by members of the Research Insti- 

 tute and others, the most elaborate of which are 

 " Indian Forest Engineering," by G. M. Rogers, and 

 " Indian Forest Zoology," by E. P. Stebbing. 



Unfortunately, the establishment of this institute 

 was followed by a temporary deterioration of the 

 teaching staff in Dehra Dun, for the Government of 

 India did not accept Mr. Wilmot 's proposal to retain 

 an adequate staff of instructors there, but handed 

 over the practical teaching to the provincial staff, the 

 research officers considering that their other duties 

 would not allow them time to teach the students. 

 The Dehra Dun Forest School, recently dignified with 

 the title of Imperial Forest College, was over- 

 crowded with students, 120 applications for admis- 

 sion having been received in 1909, and the students 

 had not sufficient respect for their native teachers, 

 so that discipline suffered greatly. 

 NO. 2 1 19, VOL. 83] 



The Indian Universities Act of 1894, ^hich has 

 exerted its influence so widely on higher studies, has 

 failed to reach Dehra. Engineering, medicine, 

 and agriculture, and science generally, have made 

 great advances of late in response to the stimulus of 

 university reform, but at the Imperial Forest Col- 

 lege the qualifying entrance examination is still much 

 the same as when it was a school, and its courses 

 still include an amount of rudimentary science that 

 should have no place at a college. This becomes 

 evident when the standards there are compared with 

 those at the agricultural colleges recently established 

 in the various provinces of India. The final examina- 

 tion for the diploma in forestry at Dehra should 

 also be equivalent to those for a B.A, degree, as is 

 the case at agricultural colleges. 



The present Inspector-General of Forests, Mr. F. 

 Beadon Bryant, has recognised that the teaching of 

 forest rangers has fallen off since the Research Insti- 

 tute was started, and that it was a mistake to 

 entrust the teaching of classes of sixty- students there 

 to members of the provincial ser\-ice. Research 

 officers in future will give lectures to the students 

 during the four months' monsoon session, and three 

 officers of the Imperial Forest Service are being ap- 

 pointed to teach the students throughout the two 

 years' course for rangers and the three years' course 

 for the provincial staff. Overcrowding at Dehra is 

 to be avoided by the establishment of a school for 

 rangers in the Madras Presidency, with at least two 

 professors from the Imperial staff, and probably 

 another school on similar lines will be established 

 in the Central Provinces. Indian forest schools have 

 to provide foresters for Kashmir, Mysore, Hyderabad, 

 and the other native States, besides for British India, 

 and Mr. Wilmot has recently been deputed to Nepal 

 to organise a suitable forestry department there. 



It is evident that schools of forestry, at home, in 

 India, and in the colonies, must be in close touch with 

 the universities; but while Indian universities have 

 a suitable English and scientific entrance examina- 

 tion, this is not y-et the case with some of our most 

 important home universities, and this defect calls 

 loudly for reform in the best interests of our Empire. 

 The prospects of forest technology in India are now 

 very high, and it is to be hoped that, following the 

 example there and that of South Africa, where a 

 forest school has been established, the Dominion of 

 Canada, Newfoundland, Australia, and New Zealand 

 will soon bestow sufficient attention on forestry and 

 establish local forest schools. Besides India and 

 South Africa, the scientific forestry of which has been 

 I long established, there are regular forestry depart- 

 j ments in Ceylon, the Malay States, the Soudan, 

 I British East Africa, Mauritius, Cyprus, and in some 

 I of the West Indian Islands. W. R. Fisher. 



! THE TWENTIETH-CENTURY SPORTSMAN.^ 



THIS amazing picture-book (recommendable, 

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I has attained in spite of the conflicting interest of cur- 

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! author (who is the brother of the Captain W. R. 



I Dugmore who distinguished himself in Uganda and 

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I 1 "Camera Adventures in the African Wilds ; being aa Account of a 

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 131. (London : William Hdnemann, 1910.) Price 301. net. 



