154 



40. There is no reason to suppose that the Board of A griculture will 

 be less willing in the future than it has been to aid in the establishing 

 of forestry teaching in suitable centres ; but its support from the limited 

 funds — eight thousand pounds — at its disposal for educational purposes, 

 is always given as a grant in aid, and is contingent upon evidence of 

 local effort towards the end desired, which we must therefore look to in 

 the first instance. 



41. It is of no use to speculate upon the prospects of private munifi- 

 cence providing equipment in any centre. We may hope for it, but I 

 do not think times are such as to lead us to expect large pecuniary aid 

 from landowners. After vigorous effort amongst them, extending over 

 some years, to secure an endowment for a chair of forestry in Edinburgh, 

 a sum a little over two thousand pounds is all that has been raised. 



42. But forestry is one of those subjects to the teaching of which we 

 may bj more sanguine of support from County Councils. It will always 

 be a matter of regret to scientific men, and those interested in the in- 

 dustrial progress of the country, that the grand opportunity furnished 

 by the fund dealt with under the Local Taxation Act (1890) was not 

 taken more advantage of by the Government of the day. Distributed, 

 even in part, through representative educational institutions, it could 

 have provided equipment for technical education of the highest kind 

 beyond our dreams. Thrown at the heads of the County Councils, be- 

 fore these bodies had had time to settle to their prescribed work, there 

 has been, in the opinion of those well qualified to judge, no little waste. 

 You could not create all at once the machinery requisite for the most 

 efficacious expenditure of half a million of money on technical teaching. 

 Much of the work done by these bodies is admirable. It is indeed sur- 

 prising in the whole circuin stances how efficiently technical instruction 

 has been carried out, and no doubt it will improve. But it had a most 

 extravagant start. It is difficult to trace, in the general returns of the 

 technical education undertaken by the County Councils, the details of 

 their work, and I have not been able to discover how far forestry has 

 been treated as a subject of instruction. It has not, I think, been often 

 included. But the example of Northumberland and Durham in respect 

 of the Newcastle chair is one that gives encouragement for thinking 

 that if the due importance of forestry to the community were made 

 clear, County Councils, in districts favourable for forestry and its con- 

 commitant industries, might come forward with some of the financial 

 support needed for the provision of the educational equipment. 



43. It appears to me that whilst we must obtain from the Grovern- 

 ment the institution of sylvicultural areas for practical instruction our 

 best chance of success in acquiring the necessary endowment for the 

 rest of the teaching lies in the line of combination between the Board of 

 Agriculture and the County Councils, with, it may be, aid from private 

 benefactors. But if we were to draw financial support from County 

 Councils, or from private sources, we must as a first step towards this 

 make known, more thoroughly than it is, the nature of the national in- 

 terests involved. We must disabuse landowners, land agents, and prac- 

 tical foresters of the notion that forestry consists in the random sticking 

 in of trees, which anyone, no matter how unskilled, may accomplish. 

 We must bring home to the people's minds that in science is to be 



