ORIGIN OF THE SCHOOL OF FORESTRY. 13 



management of steppe lands of that extensive dis- 

 trict. 



1 In regard to France, into which the ideas prevailing in 

 Germany penetrated without difficulty, they then perceived 

 also the necessity of entrusting the administration of 

 public forests to a staff of officials possessed of a know- 

 ledge of the several departments of forest science ; and, to 

 secure this, they instituted in Nancy, in the year 1824, the 

 school where the forest engineers thenceforward have 

 received instruction. The first director of this school, M. 

 Lorentz, having been educated at Tharand, the school was 

 formed after the model of the earlier schools of Germany, 

 and its organisation was accordingly similar to that of 

 those schools ; and it has long maintained a well-deserved 

 consideration for the zeal, and energy, and work of its 

 professors. 



4 Such, in rough outline, is a sketch of the history of 

 forestal instruction in Europe, reflecting the dominating 

 ideas of different nations in which schools of forestry had 

 been established, when first there was heard in Spain a 

 voice with authority proposing to open for her also a road 

 which might lead to the consideration and restoration of 

 her diminished forest riches.' 



Sr. Castel, in his treatise on the origin and develop- 

 ment of the school, writes, in accordance with what has 

 been stated in the preceding chapter in reference to the 

 General Ordinance of 1833, cited in the preceding chapter,as 

 issued to prevent a progressive devastation and destruc- 

 tion of forests in Spain. In reference to the General 

 Ordinance of 1833, he says : ' While these General Ordi- 

 nances put an end to some vicious practices and privileges 

 which could not be sustained, and created a General 

 Directory, to the charge of which were committed all the 

 forests now designated public, they did not break with the 

 traditions and proceedings of established usage comingdown 

 from the olden times, manifesting a lack of special know- 

 ledge of the matter in hand, and great if not absolute 



