438 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



forester. That accounts among other things for the wide 

 extension of forestry education, of which we ourselves still 

 possess so very little. Ireland is, once more, a little ahead of 

 us. And it may interest poHticians with a memory to learn, 

 that the whilom country seat of Charles Stewart Parnell, 

 Avondale, has now become a forest school. Germany has 

 its Tharand, its Giessen, its Neustadt-Eberswalde, to pit 

 against our nothing and French Nancy. The owning agri- 

 culturist wants qua owner to understand forestry, and 

 accordingly lays himself out for respecting its rules, so far 

 as his possessions, down to the smallest areas, permit. 

 That accounts in great part for the fact that, whereas in 

 this country the obsessing passion is to be a sportsman, 

 in Germany forestry holds the first place in popular esti- 

 mation. That ends all conflict, as Mr. Leese has pointed 

 out, between gamekeeper and forester. Private forest 

 owners are generally careful to practise good forestry. 

 Their forests grow for them into money to be taken in the 

 price of the wood sold or in the valuation put upon the 

 property, if that should be sold while the wood is still 

 growing. 



There are, indeed, not a few landowners in Germany who 

 deliberately wreck their little bit of forest for the sake of 

 a little timely cash. Tout comma chez nous. However at 

 this point another factor steps in. For, for any one who is 

 not absolute owner of his land, there is supervision. If his 

 property is entailed, there is an authority to watch over it 

 and see that he does not fell too much, to the loss of his 

 successor. If he is in debt to the landschaft — and that 

 covers a good bit of ground — the landschaft sees that he 

 not only does not fell improvidently, but also that he keeps 

 his forest (as also his fields and buildings) in good condition. 

 In Prussia — which makes up the major portion of Germany 

 ■ — there is also — very necessary — Government supervision 

 for forests belonging to municipal bodies, communes, foun- 

 dations and the " dead hand " otherwise. In the South 

 of Germany, where there is very much communal forest 

 and forest belonging to Corporations (in the Grandduchy 

 of Baden a full third, not a few of them corporations of 



