CONCLUSION. 227 



timber sold, or they will in due course perish naturally, 

 and disappear of themselves. In either case the result is 

 deeply to be deplored, for when once a forest disappears, 

 it can only be replaced at a great expense of time and 

 money. 



'It is for this reason that I am here to advocate the 

 establishment — be it on the smallest scale even, to com- 

 mence with — of some system of national instruction in 

 scientific forestry. Hitherto, we have been entirely depen- 

 dent on Continental schools for this training, and at the 

 present moment we have oificers of the French forest 

 service, who have been lent to the British Government, at 

 the head of the forest administrations both at the Cape of 

 Good Hope and at Cyprus. It seems, then, time that 

 some stir should be made to help ourselves in this matter. 

 It would, perhaps, suffice at first to establish a course of 

 lectures on forestry at one of our public educational estab- 

 lishments, at which young men desirous of following a 

 forest career might attend ; provision being made for their 

 instruction in practical work, if possible, in our own Crown 

 forests, but otherwise, in some of the State forests on the 

 Continent. It might be hoped that the Indian and Colonial 

 Governments would, as an encouragement, place some 

 appointments in their forest services at the disposal of 

 young men so educated. 



' As a proof of what has been already effected in India 

 by the forest officers educated in the Continental schools, 

 I may mention that in that country there are at the 

 present date 9,820,000 acres of reserved forests, the whole 

 of which are managed generally on the principles above 

 detailed, and 2,493,000 of which are protected from fire, 

 as well as cattle and sheep grazing, and, consequently, are 

 now in a condition to reproduce themselves under the 

 natural system ; and as, perhaps, the most convincing 

 proof, from a practical point of view, of the value of the 

 system, I may add, that the forest revenue of India, which 

 in 1870 was only £357,000, with a net revenue of £52,000, 

 in 1880 reached £545,000, with a net revenue of £215,000. 



