OPPORTUNITIES AND FACILITIES. 



By referring to' the University Calendar for 1902-3, pp. 24-45, 

 it will be seen that facilities for pursuing the fundamental and 

 accessory studies of languages, mathematics, physics, chemistry, 

 botany, zoology, etc., are amply provided for. Special facilities 

 for teaching the courses in Forestry exist, and additional equip- 

 ment, collections, etc., are being brought together at the present 

 time. 



For field work the vicinity of Ann Arbor offers the best oi 

 opportunities. Convenient rural street car systems take the stu- 

 dent, at very moderate cost, to a variety of hardwood and swamp 

 forests, where all conditions from the virgin woods to the slash 

 are met with, and where a study of the results of good and bad 

 work are well calculated to prepare the student for his future 

 task. In addition, a few hours' ride by steam car suffices to reach 

 the pineries of the Southern Peninsula, the home of the famous 

 Michigan pine, where cut-over lands, dotted here and there with 

 tracts of good pine, and occasionally by patches of second growth, 

 present the many conditions of the great problem of reforestation 

 and offer reliable hints for future management. 



To introduce the student into the actual business of caring for 

 such lands and their improvement, it is the intention to have him 

 partake of the real work of caring for the State and University 

 lands, and thus begin, under proper supervision, to practice what 

 he has learned. 



In addition, it is hoped to utilize students and graduates in 

 assisting owners of woodlands, who apply to the University for 

 advice or assistance, by preparing proper plans, and, if desired, 

 by supervising the operations on these lands. 



The absence of any well-regulated forests, similar to those of 

 many European countries, might be regarded as a serious draw- 

 back m the educational facilities, since such woods represent the 

 goal to be obtained. However, the student here prepares him- 

 self for a task quite different from that of managing a forest as 

 a superior officer, with the woods, the market, the forest officers 

 and laborers all completely and permanently organized and pre- 

 pared. His duty will largely be that of caring for wild woods, 

 for cut- and burned-over pinery lands, and the improvement of 

 badly mismanaged woodlots, where everything is new, every- 

 thing yet to be done, the forest to be made, the help to be or- 

 ganized and trained, the market to be sought and improved, and 

 the people of the district to be convinced of the usefulness of the 

 forest and the necessity of its proper protection. For these rea- 

 sons it is believed that the field-work under the very conditions 

 which he has to face in actual practice in forests where the wild 

 woods conditions have existed for centuries, will prove fully a? 

 instructive as work under settled conditions, and perhaps even 

 more useful. 



