June 26, 1884J 



NA TURE 



195 



the means of leaving a lasting improvement on the condi- 

 tion of forestry in this country. One thing it certainly 

 must do, and that is it will draw attention to the great im- 

 portance of practical forestry in utilising and developing 

 the resources of forest produce, and in directing attention to 

 these products the eyes of many will be opened as to their 

 value, whether to the consumer or to the producer. There 

 is, however, a higher aim in the prosecution of scientific 

 forestry than even these points just referred to, namely, 

 the preservation of indigenous arboreal vegetation and 

 the securing of a sufficient rainfall. 



The superiority of our Indian Empire and many of the 

 British colonies, as well as France and other countries of 

 continental Europe, over Great Britain itself must, from 

 the nature of things, be prominently seen in the forth- 

 coming Exhibition, whether in the character of the ex- 

 hibits themselves, or in the exemplification of forest work- 

 ings. This, then, should bring some good results towards 

 putting our own country on a more satisfactory footing 

 regarding the teaching of the principles of forestry, so 

 that we may not in the future stand in the unenviable 

 position of being about the only country of any import- 

 ance which has not its School of Forestry or some institu- 

 tion or college where the Government recognises the 

 importance of the subject by a grant from the Imperial 

 Exchequer. The position of England in this respect as 

 compared with other countries was admirably shown by 

 Col. Pearson in his paper on " The Teaching of Forestry," 

 read before the Society of Arts on March 1, 1882. He 

 then pointed out that, " besides the establishments for 

 teaching forest management in Germany and France, 

 schools of sylviculture now exist in all the principal 

 countries of Europe except in Great Britain. Austria, 

 Italy, Russia, Switzerland, and even Roumania, most 

 of them, after sending pupils for a few years to the 

 French and German schools, have set up schools of their 

 own, and thus rendered themselves independent of foreign 

 educational aid." After referring to the fact that America 

 was at that time about founding a similar school, Col. 

 Pearson says : — 



" It is to be regretted that as yet no steps have 

 been taken to do the same in Great Britain, for with 

 us, as elsewhere, a forest school would become not only 

 an establishment for teaching sylviculture, but also a 

 centre of study and practical observation from whence a 

 knowledge of sylviculture as a science would be spread 

 abroad for the benefit of society in general. 



" It is certain that, unless the forests of a country 

 are properly and economically managed, the time may 

 come when, as was the case in India, it will find 

 itself without the means of procuring the needful 

 supply of timber, except at an extravagant price ; 

 while at the same time the general interests of the com- 

 munity require that a fairly abundant and cheap supply 

 should be constantly available. This is especially the 

 case where, as in the great continental areas, deficiency 

 in the means of transport, or the distance from the timber- 

 producing tracts, adds materially to its cost. In such 

 cases experience has shown that the only practicable 

 way out of the difficulty is for the State to intervene ; 

 and although in England we have special facilities for 

 supplying our wants from abroad, owing to our extended 

 commerce with all countries, the extreme limits of a 

 reasonably cheap supply seem to have been reached ; and 

 at all events State action seems so far desirable as to help 

 private proprietors to make the best use of their timber- 

 producing lands." 



Following on this, namely, in August last, Sir John 

 Lubbock asked from his place in the House of Commons 

 whether Her Majesty's Government, during the autumn 

 then ensuing, would consider the question of forest edu- 

 cation in this country, and whether the national forests 

 might not be utilised for this purpose, taking occasion to 

 point out that our woods and plantations amounted in 



round numbers to 2,500,000 acres, and, moreover, that in 

 Scotland and Wales it was calculated that there were 

 5,000,000 or 6,000,000 acres at present almost valueless, 

 which, if judiciously planted, would give large results, 

 thereby showing that the subject was one of vast import- 

 ance. Sir John Lubbock further said: — "We were the 

 only important nation in Europe without a forest school, 

 and yet if we included our colonies, our forests were the 

 largest and most valuable in the world. It appeared to 

 be a very strong argument in favour of the establishment 

 of a forest school in this country that at present the young 

 men who were going out to manage our Indian forests 

 had to be sent for instruction to the great French Forest 

 School at Nancy. No doubt that this was a most excel- 

 lent institution, and we were indebted to the French 

 Government for the courtesy with which they had received 

 our English students ; but the system of education given 

 there naturally contained some branches — as, for instance, 

 the study of French law — that were not adapted to 

 English students, while there were many other considera- 

 tions, such as climate, which rendered a Continental 

 school less suitable for English requirements. He might 

 add that no young Englishman as a matter of fact, went 

 there excepting those intended for the Indian service. 

 For our colonies, again, the establishment of a good forest 

 school here would be of very great importance. A judicious 

 management of their woods would add considerably to 

 their income." As an illustration of the need of some 

 system of forest teaching in this country, Sir John Lub- 

 bock referred to the recent appointment of a Forest Com- 

 missioner by the Government of the Cape of Good Hope 

 at a high salary, a French gentleman having been 

 selected in consequence of the failure to find a properly 

 qualified Englishman. 



India was perhaps the first country belonging to the 

 British Empire to organise a complete system of forest 

 conservancy, and this was not effected before it was abso- 

 lutely needed, for many of the valuable timber trees of 

 India were threatened with annihilation in consequence of 

 the reckless manner in which they were felled to supply 

 the wants of the people. Theappointmentof Dr. Brandis 

 as Inspector-General of Forests, in 1863, was the com- 

 mencement of a better state of things, "and in 1867 his 

 scheme for training foresters for India in the schools of 

 France and Germany was, after much discussion, adopted 

 finally by both the Home and Indian Governments." The 

 outcome of this is well known, and India now has a large 

 and well-trained staff of educated forest officers, who not 

 only furnish valuable and interesting periodical reports on 

 the forests of their respective districts, but standard works 

 on the subject of India's arboreal vegetation are not 

 amongst the least important result of their labours. As a 

 proof of this we need only mention the titles of Beddome's 

 " Flora Sylvatica of Madras," published in 1873 > Brandis's 

 " Forest Flora of North-West and Central India," pub- 

 lished in 1874 ; Kurz's " Forest Flora of British Burma," 

 published in 1877, and last, though not by any means 

 least, Gamble's " Manual of Indian Timbers," published 

 in 1881. 



Trained as Indian forest officers now are before com- 

 mencing their duties, and with the books we have men- 

 tioned as their guides, it is not difficult to understand that 

 our Indian Empire possesses a well-organised Forest De- 

 partment, and many of the colonies are following, if not 

 on exactly similar lines, the example set for the preser- 

 vation of their forests. With all these indications around 

 us that foreign countries and our own dependencies are 

 fully alive to the importance of a proper management of 

 their forests, it is not a little remarkable that we in this 

 country are no farther advanced in the matter of establish- 

 ing forest teaching here than we were two years since, 

 when the subject was so strongly represented by Col. 

 Pearson, or when nearly a year since Sir John Lubbock 

 revived it, and placed the matter prominently before the 



