184 WEST AFRICAN FORESTS AND FORESTRY 
about fifteen years’ work, it will only go to show the vast potentialities 
and resources that may be eventually created, or preserved from 
destruction, in Nigeria. 
V. Tue Forest DEPARTMENT.* 
European Forest Officers are of two ranks, the scientifically trained 
Conservators of Forests and the executively trained Foresters. 
The scope of this paper will only cover the former, as very few 
of the latter are Europeans, and most of them Nigerians. 
From Oxford, Cambridge and Edinburgh, graduates in Forestry 
can usually be procured. The training at these centres covers roughly 
a year or a year and a half’s work on the elementary subjects, such 
as Botany, Mathematics, Geology, Mensuration, Surveying, and 
Political Economy. In addition, a year or two years’ work on the 
professional subjects, Silviculture or the growing of Forests, Forest 
Protection, Forest Utilization, Forest Botany, Forest Entomology, 
Forest History and Forest Policy is required. At the end of the 
course, six months’ practical work in Scottish or English forests 
follows, during which period working plans and market conditions 
are especially studied. 
After being accepted for appointment in Nigeria, a further three 
months’ course is taken at the Royal Gardens, Kew; and six months’ 
practical work on the Continent was (before the war) usually required. 
At Kew, the object is to acquire a working knowledge of the most 
important Botanical Orders which contain the African trees. The 
continental course shows the student forests which have been under 
a definite scheme of management for over a hundred years. It takes 
one, in fact, right through the life-history of a tree from a seedling 
in the nursery-bed to the well-grown financially mature tree, marked 
ready for the axe, a period of about eighty years. 
The initial appointment is for three years on probation, after which 
it may be confirmed. The initial salary of an Assistant Conservator 
of Forests is £300 per annum, rising by increments of £15 to £400 
per annum. The first appointment dates from the day of sailing, 
the passage being paid by the Nigerian Government, and salary on 
half-pay begins from the date of departure until the arrival in Nigeria, 
when full salary begins to accrue. Intending candidates should bear 
in mind that an early selection for appointment entitles them to 
seniority over other candidates who, owing to their being fully 
qualified, are appointed immediately, and thus reach the Colony 
before them. Locally, a commuted travelling allowance of £42 per 
annum is drawn to compensate for the extra cost entailed in inspecting 
the forests. A limited number of carriers, or other means of transport, 
* Reprinted by kind permission of the Editor of United Empire. 
