450 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



call " King's Messengers," forming a special corps, organised 

 on military lines, composed of men with military titles and 

 military rank, but without privates or non-commissioned 

 officers, the corps of Feldjdger being maintained for this 

 particular purpose. For such men there is in Prussia, with 

 its immense forests and its bureaucratic and military habit 

 of mind, ample scope. And that service is popular and 

 petted ; and with its large demand it provides a good 

 " career." There are plenty of berths for men of the sort in 

 the gift of the Crown ; and a good number more there are 

 available in the employment of very large landowners, 

 generally on entailed and princely estates. Our country 

 could not, at the present time, at any rate, offer anything 

 like the same opening. And we do not care about titles, 

 official precedence and buttons. However, men of this 

 t^'pc should be there, to advise and to guide. But they 

 should be in the service of the State and optionally available 

 for counsel and supervision, such as is freely given abroad, 

 among other countries very notably in the United States, 

 to every one advancing a good claim. That would make 

 them of very great benefit here ; for it would practically 

 place our forests, large or small, under the most expert 

 guidance, even the patches belonging to those landowners, 

 who would still prefer to appoint their own Tom, Dick or 

 Harry, but would not be sorry to have an occasional word 

 of counsel from a superior expert. And, in view of the 

 national service rendered, assuredly no one would grudge 

 the expenditure of what would after all be only a moderate 

 amount of public money. 



The education which such superior forest officers and 

 those who are to act in this country as teachers of forestry 

 will have to acquire, will, at any rate at the outset, have 

 to be obtained abroad. For we have not the requisite 

 institutions, nor yet, at present, the apparatus of forests 

 well kept for a long time back, to serve as illustrations, for 

 such education. We should probably prefer to go to 

 France, which possesses an admirable educational service, 

 however with visits periodically paid, as part of a settled 

 curriculum, to German and Swiss forests, to compare such 



