CHAPTER I. 



APPROPRIATE SITE FDR A BRITISH NATIONAL SCHOOL 

 OF FORESTRY, 



THE selection of a site for a National School of Forestry 

 is a matter of considerable importance. The original idea, 

 or one at least which was entertained at a very early period 

 in the considerations of arrangements to be made for the 

 establishment of a School of Forest Engineers in Spain, 

 was that the school should be established in the capital. 

 Difficulties experienced in securing suitable house accom- 

 modation for the school in Madrid proved almost fatal to 

 the scheme. To cite the phraseology made use of, it had 

 become a question of To be or not to be? when the 

 discovery was made that suitable accommodation might 

 be obtained at Villaviciosa ; and subsequently the discovery 

 was made that, all things being considered, still more suit- 

 able accommodation might be found intheEscunal: and thus 

 was determined the sites successively adopted. Both of these 

 sites were, by what seems like a legal fiction, considered 

 to be covered by the praseology employed in the Royal 

 Decree, which required it to be located in the vicinity 

 of the Court, by which was meant, in the capital. 



These locations successively commanded the assent of 

 His Excellency Senor D. Maximo Laguna y Villanueva, by 

 whom, after making himself acquainted with the conditions 

 of Schools of Forestry elsewhere, the location of the school 

 in Madrid had been advocated ; and the assent of His 

 Excellency Senor D. Bernardo de la Torre Royas, by whom 

 the school at Villaviciosa had been organised ; but the 

 original design was that indicated, that the school should be 

 located in the capital, and this was desired because of 

 the educational advantages which could be commanded 

 there. 



