100] (iui'iritiiK'iil Forestry A/iroml. 15 



under some experienced Oberforster, to enter which 

 the candidate is required to show, besides his certifi- 

 cate of graduation, that he is under twenty-two 

 years of age; that he has certain moral and physical 

 qualities, and that his financial resources are suffi- 

 cient to carry him through his whole forest educa- 

 tion. The object of this preparatory year is to intro- 

 duce the beginner to the forest and its management; 

 to enable him to become acquainted with the more 

 important forest trees: to take part in planting and 

 felling and the protection of the forest: to do a little 

 surveying, and last, but by no means least, to learn 

 to hunt. It may be said in passing that the love 

 of hunting, which the Prussian forest service is 

 careful to encourage, has very much to do with the 

 faithfulness and efficiency of its individual members. 

 Great stress is rightly laid on this year of prepara- 

 tory work, chiefly because of the vastly greater force 

 and reality which it gives to the subsequent theo- 

 retical teaching. As one who has suffered from 

 the lack of it, I may perhaps be permitted to bear 

 my testimony to the value of a custom which is 

 unfortunately less widely extended than its merits 

 deserve: but which I hope to see one day established 

 in the forest schools of our land. 



The young Prussian forester who has had the good 

 fortune to pass through this preliminary year next 

 spends two years at a forest school, presumably either 

 M iiiiden. or Neustadt Eberswalde, both of which are 

 in Prussia, and like all other similar German schools, 

 are supported by the State. The candidate may, if 

 he chooses, attend any of the other forest schools, of 

 which Germany numbers six (Aschaffenburg and the 

 Forest School of the Munich Universitv, which 



