iqi-i .] School of Working Foresters, 



499 



After admission they work in Dean Forest under the same 

 regulations as Crown workmen and under the orders of the 

 Crown woodman of the district to which they are sent. The 

 school usually works in one gang under the immediate super- 

 vision of a foreman, who is an old pupil of the school. The 

 ordinary hours of work are from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., with half 

 an hour for breakfast and one hour for dinner. In winter the 

 hours are from 7.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m., with half an hour for 

 breakfast and again for dinner. Every alternate Saturday is 

 a half-holiday. Usually the students spend two afternoons a 

 week, from 1.30 to 4 p.m., with the instructor in the class- 

 room, and occasionally go out with him for walks and excur- 

 sions in the woods for the whole day. 



The students are paid at the rate of 15s. a week, or 2s. 6d. 

 a day, but do not get paid if, owing to bad weather or other 

 cause, no work is done. The time spent in school is counted 

 as work, and is paid for. 



The education is free, and is designed to make a student 

 thoroughly qualified to act as forester on any estate in the 

 United Kingdom. The instruction given includes sylvicul- 

 ture, forest protection, forest mensuration, management and 

 simple working plans, the felling and conversion of timber, 

 elementary botany and surveying, arithmetic and simple 

 accounts. 



With regard to practical work in the forest, the students 

 work in the nurseries at sowing, transplanting, trenching, 

 weeding, and grafting; in the forest they work at planting, 

 clearing, pruning, thinning, stripping bark, felling, and 

 measurement of trees both felled and standing. Fencing, 

 hedging, and draining is also done as far as is possible in 

 connection with the ordinary routine of the forest work. In 

 addition, each student works in the carpenter's shop for two 

 or three months at gate-making and other rough carpentry. 



The progress made is periodically tested by examinations 

 both in the classroom and forest, the final examination being 

 conducted by the Consulting Forester to the Commissioners 

 of Woods. To all who satisfy the examiner a certificate, 

 signed by the Commissioner of Woods and by the Deputy 

 Surveyor of Dean Forest, is given. 



No guarantee of employment at the end of the school 



