OklGIN OF THfe SCHOOL OF FORESTRY. Id 



by additions obtained on the occasional and annual 

 excursions of the students, and otherwise. 



A campo forestal, created in 1850 in connection with a 

 leafy wood of elms in the immediate vicinity of the school, 

 which, with some adjacent ground, was planted with pines 

 and beeches, and served for the practice of students in 

 sylviculture, and the acclimisation of trees from other 

 countries, now took more and more the form of an 

 arboretu m , or ja rdine forestal. 



In the spring and autumn, to supply lack of practice in 

 forest work, excursions were made sometimes to the 

 pineries of the Sierra del Guadarrama ; at other times to 

 the oak and beech woods of the Liebana ; also to the 

 pineries of Coca to study the collecting and manipulation 

 of rosin; and to the magnificent forests of Valsain and 

 the Espinar, and to those which form the great mass of 

 the Serranias of Cuenca and of Segura, in the province of 

 Jaen. In these excursions the students were accompanied 

 by some one of the professors, who, to quote from Senor 

 Castel, ' in one place finds what suggests the explanation 

 and discussion of matters pertaining to botanical geography, 

 in another records of geognostic and miueralogical know- 

 ledge already acquired in the school, and always spots 

 suitable for exercising the students in fixing forest com- 

 partments, in determining the ages of different kinds of 

 trees, in calculating the possible yield of produce, and the 

 many other problems which go to complete the questions 

 embraced in the systematic arrangement of a forest.' 



In the year 1866 there was published by Royal order, 

 a report of a Tour of Observation of Forestry in the 

 Empires of Austria and Russia, made by Royal order in 

 the spring of 1864 by Sr. D. Maxima Laguna y Villanueva, 

 Forest Eugineer-in-Chief of the 2nd class, and Professor in 

 the School of Forestry, Excursion Forestal, &c., to which 

 reference has already been made. In this there is given 

 the Royal order, communicated by the Minister de 

 Fomento, under date of 30th May, 1864, requiring Senor 



