EDUCATION AND TRAINING 53 



prove most serviceable to the country. But to 

 enable such corps to be immediately formed, without 

 that inevitable friction and delay which is so apt to 

 ruin schemes of this nature, a cut-and-dried plan should 

 be drawn up beforehand ready to be at once put into 

 force when the moment arrives, and this plan should be 

 on a sufficient scale to ensure the adequate realisation 

 of the objects aimed at. 



As regards education and training. It has been 

 shown that every soldier nowadays knows how to use 

 the spade and pick. Therefore with supervision there 

 should be no difficulty in getting the planting work 

 done satisfactorily. The education in forestry of those 

 who elect to take to a forestry life should also present 

 no difficulties. There are forestry classes for wood- 

 men in the Agricultural Colleges throughout the 

 country and there is an excellent Woodmen's School 

 at the Forest of Dean, a fine new building, up-to-date 

 in all respects, having been completed just before the 

 outbreak of the war. Selected men from the Planting 

 Corps could be sent to these schools in the summer 

 season when forestry work is slack to take the wood- 

 man's courses. In this way a trained subordinate 

 forest staff would be built up ready for employment 

 in the supervision of the large areas of commercial 

 woods which the country w^ould possess. 



The higher training for the gazetted ranks who would 

 be responsible for the scientific management of the 

 woods on strictly commercial lines likewise offers no 

 difficulties. Many of the most important Universities 

 of the country now possess Forestry Departments in 

 which students, as the result of a three years' course, 



