12 Studies in Forestry [CHAP. i. 



Of course, in such an enlightened country as Great Britain, 

 it might reasonably be expected that everything has already 

 been done by Government to provide for the due instruction 

 of those to whom are confided the responsible task of ad- 

 ministering or working these woodlands. That would certainly 

 be the natural inference when one looks abroad at other 

 countries, and at the same time thinks of the many tens of 

 thousands of pounds spent on, and in connexion with, the fine 

 collections of stuffed birds, fishes, reptiles, &c., palatially 

 housed in the magnificent building forming the Natural History 

 Museum at South Kensington, and on the other vast sums 

 of national money originally and annually disbursed for the 

 housing and maintenance of aesthetic and other technical edu- 

 cation. But one would be vastly mistaken in making any such 

 common-sense assumption. When Governments are badgered 

 about any subject in an inconvenient manner, they seem to 

 have a stereotyped way of gravely appointing a committee for 

 the purpose of reporting on this, that, or the other subject ; and 

 after such report has been submitted, there is often practically 

 an end of the business in the meantime, until they are worried 

 again on the subject. This solemn farce has been twice recently 

 enacted with regard to Forestry in Great Britain. During 

 1885 a committee was appointed for the purpose of considering 

 ' whether by the establishment of a Forest School^ or otherwise, 

 our woodlands could be rendered more remunerative] and on 

 August 3, 1887, they delivered themselves of a report, from 

 which the following excerpts contain the principal conclusions 

 arrived at : 



Scotland afforded by the Improvement of Land (Scotland) Act, 1893, which 

 received the Royal assent on August 24, 1893. Hitherto owners of land 

 in Scotland have been able, with the sanction of the Board of Agri- 

 culture, to charge their estates for the planting of woods and trees, only in 

 cases where the planting is for the purpose of providing shelter. By the Act 

 in question, this limitation has been removed, and applications may now be 

 made to the Board for sanction to charge estates under the provisions of the 

 Improvement of Land Act, 1864, with the cost of planting whether for 

 shelter or otherwise. 



