194 



NA TURE 



[June 28, 1894 



not tally with the previous finding of the 1SS7 Com- 

 mittee. — " In respect of the Crown forests, tlu difference 

 between skilful and unskilled management would itself 

 more than repay the cost of a forest school." 



Certainly it would be for the national benefit, if purely 

 pleasure-grounds, such as Windsor Park, were excluded 

 from the Crown forests, and handed over to the Board of 

 Works, and that the 57,300 acres of the Crown forests 

 actually under timber crops, and worth at least ^ 1,500,000, 

 should be brought up to the highest degree of produc- 

 tiveness, and serve as models of economic forestry to all 

 the private forest-owners in Britain. 



Dr. Nisbet states that the salaries and allowances of 

 the officers in charge of the Crown forests aver.ige £.<)oo 

 a year, and urges that in all future appointments to these 

 posts a high degree of qualification in forestry should be 

 required, and also from one of the Commissioners of 

 Woods and Forests. 



A most amusing account, taken from the Report of the 

 Forestry Committee of 1S87, is given by Dr. Nisbet of 

 the examination of a lecturer in forestry of the Ciren- 

 cester Agricultural College, who stated that he taught 

 forestry in six or seven lectures, but admitted that he 

 had himself learned forestry there, though he did not 

 consider the course sufficient even for land-agents. 

 Other quotations from the evidence of Mr. Britton, a 

 leading timber merchant of Wolverhampton, and the 

 late Mr. MacGregor, then in charge of 20,000 acres of 

 the Athole forests in Perthshire, testify to the utler 

 ignorance of forestry possessed by land-agents and 

 factors in both England and Scotland. 



In the present state of agriculture, where economic 

 forestry alone will pay on the poorer lands, it is essential 

 that land-agents should possess a fair knowledge of 

 forestry. Lroillard, the French silviculturist, goes even 

 further and advises land owners to learn how to manage 

 their forests for themselves. 



Dr. Nisbet refers to the well-equipped forestry staff at 

 Cooper's Hill College, where the three years' course costs 

 ^183 a year, including the cost of a fourteen days' tour in 

 the Norman forests, and five months' practical forestry 

 instruction in Germany. He states, however, that the 

 Forestry Branch was added to Cooper's Hill, to prop up 

 an Engineering College which had ceased to pay its 

 expenses, and that there is nothing in the situation of 

 the college to have induced the Government to have 

 located the Forestry Branch there. As a matter of fact. 

 Cooper's Hill is admirably situated from a forest point of 

 view ; the 9,ooD acres of the Windsor Forest, exclusive 

 of the park, and stocked with every species of tree which 

 will grow in Central Europe, is close to the college, and 

 in it the college has leased 8o3 acres, chielly of Scotch 

 pine forest, for practical work for the forest students. 

 There are excellent forest nurseries, osier beds on the 

 Thames, a good Crown coppice with standards of 800 

 acres at Esher, and large areas of beech selection forests 

 on the Chiltcrn Hills, all of which are regularly visited 

 by the students, whilst the magnificent oak and beech 

 forests of Normandy are only a night's journey distant, 

 and in them the students spend fourteen days every year. 

 One reads nothing bjt praise of the old Indian College 

 at Ilaileybiiry ; and esfiril de corps among the scientific 

 branches of the Government of India is certainly fostered 

 NO. 1287, VOL. 50] 



by training engineers, telegraphists, and foresters at the 

 same college in the loveliest and most wooded part of 

 England. There are more distractions at Oxford, and 

 longer vacations ; and after allowing for the cost of all 

 the necessary excursions and pr.ictical work in conti- 

 nental forests, it is doubtful whether living at Oxford 

 would be cheaper than at Cooper's Hill, if it had been 

 selected instead of the latter place for the training of 

 future Indian forest ofticers. 



There can, however, be no question that independently 

 of the training of Indian forest officers, in which already 

 men from the colonies have joined, and there is 

 plenty of room for more, there should be available 

 at our principal universities regular instruction in 

 forestry for the benefit of land-agents and land-owners. 

 Dr. Nisbet suggests that two chairs of forestry, each at 

 ^700, should be established by the State at Oxford, 

 Edinburgh, and Dublin, and four instructorships in 

 forestry, at ^150 each, at Dunkeld, Grantown, Coleford, 

 and Lyndhurst. This would cost in round numbers 

 ^5000 a year, which is a slight insurance to pay for the 

 better management of woodlands which have already 

 cost /^20,ooo,ooo, and will most likely be considerably 

 added to in the immediate future, being less than :]</. an 

 acre on land actually under timber. 



Forestry is, however, eminently a practical profession, 

 and the best teaching will not suffice unless extensive 

 well-managed tracts of our Crown forests are also made 

 available for practical illustration of the matter taught 

 by professors. 



Sir J. Lubbock quite recently stated at a public meeting 

 that good forestry could only be initiated by the State, 

 and it must be satisfactory to all lovers of forestry tli 

 he is again disposed to take interest in the matii 

 although when member of the Committee on Forestry 

 his attention was unfortunately distracted by other press 

 ing business, and no satisfactory results followed. 



W. R. Fisher. 



THE COMPARATIVE PATHOLOGY OP 

 INFLAMMA TION. 

 Lectures on the Comparative Pathology of InflammatioHy 

 delivered at the Pasteur Institute in 1 89 1 /')' Elioi 

 Metchitikoff, Chef de Service a I'Institut Pasteur. 

 Translated from the French by F. A. Starling and 

 E. H. Starling, M.D. With sixty-five figures in the 

 text, and three coloured plates. (London : Kegan 

 Paul, Trench, Triibner and Co., 1893.) 



THE work before us is a translation of Prof. Metchni- 

 koffs well-known book on the comparative patho- 

 logy of inflammation. This work has been so well 

 reviewed by Prof. Ray Lankester in N.mukk (vol. xlv. 

 p. 505), that it is almost superfluous to give a fresh 

 account of it. 



Readers of Nature will remember that the book i» 

 really an attempt at establishing a biological theory of 

 inflammation, which is summed up by the author as 

 follows :— " Inflammation generally must be regarded as 

 a phagocytic reaction on the part of the organism against 

 irritants. This reaction is carried out by the mobile 

 phigocytes, sometimes alone, sometimes with the aid of 

 the vascular phagocytes or the nervous system " This 



