THE ENGLISH FORESTER 327 



cover, he is as likely as not to acquire a distaste for his work 

 at the outset, which does a great deal to lessen his value as 

 a good servant or an intelligent forester. 



Unfortunately for English foresters as a class, it is 

 impossible to know beforehand the advantages or dis- 

 advantages of an ordinary estate in these respects. In our 

 opinion, it is only fair to a forester who has gone to the 

 trouble and expense of qualifying himself for the best 

 situation that he can obtain, to tell him at the outset, and 

 before he accepts any appointment of this kind, exactly what 

 his duties are, and the relative position he will hold in 

 connection with the woods. To call a man a forester upon 

 an estate where he is little more than a medium between the 

 estate agent and the ordinary workman, is a species of 

 terminology which is at once misleading and dishonest. No 

 doubt, it is to the advantage of the estate to get a good 

 manager of men, and one whose training and education 

 prevent him from practising that petty dishonesty and 

 carelessness which is largely the result of ignorance and a 

 lack of intelHgence. But to the man himself it is certainly 

 better that he should wait a bit longer, and continue in a 

 subordinate position on a properly managed estate for a few 

 more years, than to take a situation of the kind last 

 described. 



The training of working foresters or foreman woodmen 

 has not, up to the present, received much attention. It is 

 generally considered sufficient if a man has an ordinary 

 experience of manual labour and the ordinary routine of 

 woodland work. Yet it is practically certain that many 

 intelligent workmen might be rendered doubly valuable to 

 their employers if they were to acquire, or had the means 

 of acquiring, a little knowledge of the elements of their 

 calling. A working woodman does not require any great 

 knowledge of science or art, but he certainly ought to know 

 something about the functions of roots, leaves, stems, or 

 branches, the life-histories of commoner insects and fungi, 

 and the general principles of sylviculture, pruning, etc., which 

 have a constant bearing upon his daily work. How such 

 knowledge can be brought home to him without incurring 

 that grave danger which is constantly in the mind of some of 



