lod 



The examinations are conducted before the director of the forest department, 

 or an inspector-general deputed by him for this duty, and the students who pass will, 

 under the new organization, be appointed to the superior staff as sub-assistant- 

 inspectors. Like the officers trained at Nancy, they will be employed for about a, 

 year in learning their duties under an inspector, after which they will become 

 eligible for further promotion on their merits, as are the other officers of the depart- 

 ment. Subordinates from the communal forests are permitted to pass into the 

 superior grades of the government service through this school. Nine students 

 entered it during 1884 and 1885, and are still under instruction, eight of them 

 having previously passed through the primary school. One free student followed 

 the courses for a short time in 1883. 



The primary school is a branch of the establishment at Barres, the instruc- 

 tion being given by the director and professors of the secondary school. It was 

 established in 1878 for the training of young men who desired to enter the 

 service of government as forest guards, or that of private proprietors as guards 

 or wood managers, there being no restriction as regards their parentage. Up to 

 the year 1883, 148 students had passed through it into the government service, 

 and eight of these have since entered the secondary school. But in 1884 the 

 primary school was reorganized, and it is now reserved solely for the education 

 of the sons of forest officers and subordinates who may desii-e to enter the 

 government service as forest guards, with a view in most cases, of their ultimately 

 gaining the ranks of the superior staff through the secondary school. 



Candidates must be between twenty-four and twenty-seven years of age ; 

 they must have completed their military service and be of good character, with 

 a sound constitution. They are obliged to pass an entrance examination in 

 dictation, French composition, arithmetic, elementary geometry, and French history 

 and geography. While at school they are styled " Student-Guards " ; quarters 

 are provided for them, and they receive from government a part of their uniform, 

 and an allowance of 1 16s. a month, to provide themselves with food and 

 clothes. 



The course occupies eleven months, and embraces the following subjects, 

 viz. : Arithmetic, plane geometry, algebraical signs, surveying and levelling, the 

 French language, French history and geography, the elements of sylviculture, the 

 elements of forest botany (including vegetable anatomy, physiology, and the 

 classification of the principal forest trees), and the elements of forest law, and 

 adminstration. The instruction is given partly in the class rooms and partly in 

 the form of practical work done in the forests. 



Passed students are, as vacancies occur, admitted to the government service 

 as forests guards of the second class ; and after two years passed in the forests 

 in that capacity they are eligible for entrance into the secondary school. During 

 1884 and 1885, however, only three students entered the primary school, two of 

 whom are still there and one has received his appointment. 



Free students can be admitted with the sanction in each case of the director 

 of the forest department, but as yet none have entered the school. 



THE PRIVATE WOODS AND FORESTS OF FRANCE. 



Those woods and forests which are neither State nor communal property- 

 belong principally to private proprietors, of whom the number is very great, but 

 also partly to civil, religious, commercial and other societies. Their extent 

 varies of course from year to year, according as clearances are made for cultiva- 

 tion or planting work is undertaken. No very exact record of the area is avail- 

 able, but the latest figures show it to be 23,657 square miles, or about two-thirds 



