Juty 17, 1902] 
of the island. A start has been made in raising the building 
fund, and Mr. Henry R. Davis, of Treborth, who acted as 
hon. treasurer of the Puffin Island station since 1892, has made 
a handsome contribution. It is hoped that his example will be 
largely followed. 
With regard to maintenance, hopes are entertained that some 
money from Government sources will be available. A year ago 
the College approached the Board of Trade with a view of 
obtaining a grant to enable it to undertake systematic investiga- 
tions in connection with fisheries, and recently the College 
put forward its claims for support before the Ichthyological 
Committee of the Board. 
FORESTRY. 
THE opening paper in the Zyansactzons of the Royal Scottish 
Arboricultural Society, 1901 (vol. xvi. part iil.) is by 
Mr. J. S. Gamble, C.I.E., F.R.S., and gives a full account of 
the Forestry Exhibition in Paris in 1900, in the ‘‘ Palais de 
Foréts, de la Chasse et des Cueillettes,” the latter term practically 
meaning productions of various kinds, from baskets and fishing- 
rods to sponges and Russian caviare. The chief exhibit by the 
French Government was a series of models, photographs, 
pamphlets, &c., on the reclamation of mountain sides, including 
a large diorama representing a hill-side before—and several 
years after—reclamation. All these illustrate the magnificent 
work done by France in the last forty years, during which 
nearly 640 square miles of country have been reafforested 
at a cost of about two and a half million pounds. Mr. 
Gamble refers to the necessity of such work being under- 
taken in the Himalayas, where landslips due to forest 
denudation have wrought wholesale destruction. He _ in- 
stances hill-slopes which he once knew as covered with fine 
forests, but which are now bare and scored with landslips, while 
their gentle streams have been converted into torrents. The 
“sufficient for the day” policy of Indian administrators con- 
stantly neglects the work of preserving mountain forests, which 
is done seriously and systematically and with the best results in 
France, Austria and Hungary. The possession of a world-wide 
empire should induce us also to undertake such an obvious duty. 
More has been done in India to fix shifting sands, chiefly by 
means of casuarina plantations along the Coromandel coast, here 
also following the great French work in Gascony, where 260 
square miles have been reclaimed and planted with maritime 
pine. The Germans have also afforested nearly the whole 
North German coast with Pinus sylvestris. 
A great feature of the International Sylvicultural Congress 
held at Paris during the progress of the Exhibition was 
M. Mélard’s paper on the world’s annual excess of imports over 
exports of timber, which he estimated at 3,437,115. in 1898, the 
chief importing countries being Britain, showing an annual 
excess of imports !over exports of 20,523,758/., and Germany, 
13,741,240/., and the chief exporting ones Austria-Hungary, 
having an excess of exports over imports of 7,941,422/., Sweden, 
7,927,080/., Russia, 5,361,285, and Canada, 5,077,756/. 
Alluding to the enormous imports of timber into the British 
Isles, M. Mélard notes that we have annually to build houses, 
factories and workshops for an increased population of 300,000, 
more than equal to that of Bordeaux, the third town in France. 
The large imports of timber into Germany, where 26 per cent. 
of the country is forest, much of which is scientifically managed, 
is a remarkable proof of the recent great economic development 
of that country. 
The second paper in the 7vamsactions is a reprint of Dr. 
Schlich’s lecture at the Society of Arts, London, on February 
27, 1901, on the world’s timber supply, which gives more 
recent figures than M, Mélard’s. Dr. Schlich had broken 
ground on this subject in March, 1897, in a lecture at the 
Imperial Institute; in the present paper he gives very full 
Statistics, and sums up with the statement that plenty of hard- 
wood is still available, but that coniferous wood (soft-wood), 
which forms 85 per cent. of the total demand, can be con- 
tinuously provided only by Sweden, Russia and Canada. 
Sweden, where the forests are well managed, may be able to 
increase its yield to 1,500,000 tons, out of a total demand of 
about 9,000,000 tons of coniferous timber, but the Russian 
supply is precarious; the great stand-by for coniferous timber 
will be Canada, if the Dominion Government does not lose 
time in introducing a rational management of the Canadian 
forests. 
NO. 1707, VOL. 66] 
NATURE 
283 
There are two useful papers by Mr. R. C. Munro Ferguson, 
M.P., the first on the arboricultural adornment of towns, with 
a list, by Prof. Bayley Balfour, of the shrubs and trees flourish- 
ing in the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh. It is not, says 
Prof. Balfour, the low temperature of Edinburgh that retards 
the growth of woody plants, but winds blowing during cold 
weather deprive the plants of their water, so that, given shelter, 
a large number of trees and shrubs may be grown. Mr 
Ferguson’s second paper is entitled ‘‘ Hints on the Training of 
Foresters.”” The advice given is excellent, and should be read 
by all young woodmen. Schools for woodmen might with 
advantage be established in the Crown woodlands adjoining 
the Forest of Dean and the New Forest, as well as near Edin- 
burgh, but the great requisite for this country in forestry 
education is that it should be available at our universities, so 
that land owners, land agents and future colonial administrators 
may be taught the importance of forestry. At present it takes 
several years to teach a new colonial governor not to devastate 
woodlands, and as soon as he has learned the lesson and pre- 
pared a useful forest scheme he has to go, and his successor 
frequently upsets all he has done. 
Several useful papers follow by different authors, chiefly 
estate woodmen, and in one of these, by Mr. D. A. Glen, on 
“Forestry in Kent and Sussex,” the following passage occurs :— 
““In many of these woods, not only the dead leaves, but every 
bit of herbage and vegetable undergrowth is carefully raked 
together and carted away to make litter, which, after it has 
been well rotted in the cattle-sheds, is utilised as manure for 
the hop-fields.” This practice is apparently also followed in 
Hampshire, and the future ruin of these impoverished wood- 
lands is as certain as those treated similarly near Nuremberg, 
where the Scotch pine has become a dwarf tree rarely exceeding 
12 feet in height. 
Paper No. 41 of the Zyamsactions is an account of a deputa- 
tion last October to the President of the Board of Agriculture. 
This has been followed by the appointment by Mr. Hanbury of 
a Departmental Committee, ‘‘ to,inquire into and report as to 
the present position and future prospects of forestry, and the 
planting and management of woodlands in the United Kingdom, 
and to consider whether any further measures might with 
advantage be taken, either by the provision of further edu- 
cational facilities, or otherwise, for their promotion and en- 
couragement.” Mr. Hanbury’s committee is admirably selected, 
and the best results may be anticipated from its deliberations if 
only money is forthcoming to carry them out. 
Colonel Bailey, R.E., the Instructor in Forestry at Edin- 
burgh, gives some ‘‘ Notes on the Forests of Norway,” chiefly 
compiled from an official publication, which will be very useful 
to the members of the Royal Scottish Arboricultural Society in 
their proposed excursion to Norway this year. Last year’s 
excursion was to woodlands near Glasgow, an account of which 
and several useful notes and queries on forest questions close this 
volume. The Society is to be congratulated on the excellent 
work done under its auspices. 
While the Royal Scottish Arboricultural Society has been in 
existence for forty-eight years and contains more than goo 
members, the English sister society is twenty years old and 
contained 513 members when the last volume of its transactions 
was published. 
These transactions, in the first place, deal with last year’s 
‘excursion to some interesting woodlands within easy reach of 
Peterborough. Then follow the two prize essays, to each of which 
a silver medal was awarded, the former by Mr, J. Price, on 
forest roads, with diagrams, a most useful paper, and the latter 
by Mr. A. Deane, of the Warrington Museum, giving descrip- 
tions of the structure of British woods, with beautiful repro- 
ductions of photographs of transverse sections of each species. 
Other interesting papers follow: ‘‘Arboreal Tunnelters” 
(leopard moth, hornet clearwing, goat moth and wood wasp), 
by Mr. C. Morley; and on an oak canker due to a species of 
Stereum, which the author considers to be new, and proposes to 
call Stereum querctnum, by Mr. M. C. Potter, Professor of 
Botany at the College of Science, Newcastle. 
Sir Hugh Beevor contributes the financial history of a four- 
acre mixed plantation, calculating the rate of interest at 4 per 
cent., which Sir J. Hooker considers forestry should pay before 
it will attract attention from investors. The financial history of 
this plantation is summarised in the following statement, which 
is of sufficient general interest for reproduction in the pages of 
NATURE. 
