83 



SCHOOLS OF FOKESTEY. 



The experience of Europe long since demonstrated the value 

 and necessity of "Forest Schools" so numerous on the Conti- 

 nent. As these institutions are unknown in this country, a 

 detailed statement of their aims and character will not only be 

 of interest, but I hope, will help towards the organization of 

 similar schools in America. In connection with either of our 

 Colleges, the endowment of two additional professorships, or 

 even one at the outset, might inaugurate a Department of 

 Forestry. As the applied mathematics and the sciences com- 

 prise so large a part of the curriculum of Forest Schools, a 

 Forest Department could very easily and economically be an- 

 nexed to the Sheffield Scientific School, where the existing 

 cabinets, laboratories and philosophical apparatus could be 

 utilized in forestral instruction. The endowment of such a 

 department would prove a great benefaction to the State and 

 to the country, opening new fields of investigation which would 

 bear directly on the ultimate resources and permanent pros- 

 perity of the nation. The conclusions of foreign foresters, 

 though confirmed by the broadest observations and experience 

 in Europe, cannot all be wisely adopted in American Sylvicul- 

 ture. Difference in soil, climate and other conditions, may 

 affect trees in regard to their rapidity of growth, health, dura- 

 bility of timber, texture, elasticity and grain of the wood, and 

 many other qualities. These vital questions can be determined 

 only by careful investigations carried on in each country. The 

 Lombardy poplar, for example, sending out its almost upright 

 laterals from the very ground all along its tall stem, grows 

 beautifully in Italy, and is still a favorite with the Italians as 

 of old with the Romans, who, it is said, gave it the name arhor 

 populi. But in New England so many of its branches winter- 

 kill that it soon becomes an unsightly collection of dead limbs. 



Another object of my recent visit to the leading schools of 

 Forestry in Europe was to gather the practical plans and 

 suggestions embodied in my paper on " Economic Tree 

 Planting," first published in the Report of the Connecti- 

 cut Board of Agriculture, and thus help reclaim our ex- 



