240 ECONOMICS OF FORESTRY. 



desirable to give opportunity to competent stu- 

 dents for observing its practice where it is well 

 developed. A year's, or even a half-year's, travel 

 through the well-managed forest districts of Ger- 

 many or France gives more insight into the 

 possibilities, advantages, and methods of forest 

 management than a lifetime spent in wrestling 

 with the problems without having seen a practi- 

 cal solution elsewhere. 



Next, no more efficient means of education in prac- 

 tical arts which, like forestry and agriculture, rely 

 still largely on empirics can be devised than the 

 establishment of experiment stations. Experiments 

 always imply the expenditure of means and energy 

 for an uncertain result, by which, to be sure, the 

 experimenter may profit, but, unless the experi- 

 ment is carried on in the quiet of a laboratory, he 

 is not alone benefited ; the observer, who does not 

 share in the expense, shares in the benefit. Hence, 

 while the principle of self-interest will lead to ex- 

 perimentation, expediency makes it desirable, in 

 some directions at least, to broaden the field of 

 experimentation, and to make the results fairly 

 and openly accessible to the whole community. 

 This is especially so where the use of a limited 

 resource, like the soil, to its greatest efficiency, is 

 of benefit to the whole of society. 



If, as has been practically conceded, experimen- 

 tation in agricultural lines is best done by state 

 institutions, this is still more true in forestry lines, 



