THE STATE AND PRIVATE OWNERS 267 



might be regarded as well spent, although no direct 

 return to the State might follow. 



Organisation on the above lines would quickly place 

 State forestry on a satisfactory basis, provided a class 

 of practical foresters were employed of the right kind. 

 If the facilities now existing for forestry education 

 are supplemented by demonstration forests, there should 

 be no trouble in securing, by competition or selection, 

 an adequate supply of well-educated young men for 

 filling all the posts that are likely to be created under 

 the most extensive scheme. These men should, however, 

 be trained as foresters from the first by serving an appren- 

 ticeship for at least two years in well-managed woods, 

 after leaving school at the age of sixteen to eighteen. 

 After this apprenticeship, they should take a course of 

 science at one of the university colleges, special attention 

 being devoted to those subjects which underlie their pro- 

 fession, but let this part of their education be thorough 

 rather than 'high.' With the satisfactory completion 

 of this course candidates for public service should be 

 drafted out as assistants on woodland areas, occupying 

 much the same position as the For st- Assessor in Ger- 

 many, and working their way up to the higher posts as 

 opportunities occur. 



By the joint action of the small planter, larger estate- 

 owner, and State, British forestry might easily reach the 

 level attained over the greater part of Europe in half a 

 century, so far as system and organisation are concerned. 

 For the production of high-class timber crops, and a 

 nett profit per acre from State woods, at least a century 

 must elapse, by which time ideas on many subjects con- 

 nected with forestry will perhaps have undergone a 

 change. 



The distribution of a possible forest area of 7.000,000 

 acres throughout the British Isles might be apportioned 

 somewhat as follows : — 



