INTERNATIONAL FORESTRY EXHIBITION, EDINBURGH, 1884.
In this age of International Exhibitions, which, when usefully directed, form what the newspapers pleasantly call ‘a wholesome mania,’ it is well to inquire into the causes, more or less urgent, which call these undertakings into being—the good they are expected by their promoters to effect not only to the towns or countries in which they are held, but to all the nationalities who take part in them; and the probable results of their success, if they are successful. It is of course open to objectors to deny the soundness of all these premises, and to question the logical deduction of their usefulness, in the case of all the projected Exhibitions which are brought under their notice. And when—as is almost necessarily the case—an appeal is made to the pockets of the public in the initiatory stage of the undertaking, objectors are not few in number, and not particularly partial, or even moderate, in the nature of their criticisms. Within due bounds, indeed, it is well that it should be so. Exhibitions got up mainly or entirely for the purpose of advertising any particular branch of trade, may be advantageous to that trade individually; but the end and object is not so much an harmonious and wholesome impetus to trade and manufacture generally, as a rivalry more or less rancorously conducted amongst the exhibitors.
The prospectus, classification, and other papers relating to the proposed Forestry Exhibition to be held in Edinburgh in the months of July, August, and September 1884 are now before the public; and it may be useful to inquire how the idea was suggested, and whether or not it is likely to be worked out with advantage to the community at large.
The primary cause which appears to have called forth the project has been no sudden or ephemeral one. To grasp it rightly, we must go back for at least a score of years, and carry our readers with us to the government of our Eastern Empire. There we shall find that a long course of unrestricted spoliation and waste had denuded the banks of rivers in proximity to the seaboard of all their protecting vegetation. The river-sources, far up in the inaccessible hills, had indeed been safe from the inroads of the timber merchants, and had been preserved from too rapid evaporation by the virgin forests which surrounded them. But in the low country the trees could be easily cut and floated down to the coast during the annual floods. A country deprived of its trees is doomed to drought; and India soon began to suffer from the reckless destruction of its forests. The officials of the government, while fully aware of the vast waste of capital and revenue going on under their eyes, were quite unable successfully to cope with it. They therefore delegated their duties to subordinates, who in many ways winked at, if they did not countenance the continuance of the evils which they were supposed to counteract and uproot. The absolute necessity of a higher-paid and more capable class of officials, whose duty should be confined to the conservancy and replanting of the forests, forced upon the government of India the formation of a Forest Department.
But when it was sought to construct this Department from the resources of Great Britain—the natural nursery for Anglo-Indian officials—these were found wholly inadequate; and more humiliating still, there was not even the means necessary to train efficient forest officers. It was decided by the government, and tacitly conceded by the public, that Great Britain could not supply finished cadets for the Forest Department of India. And from that day to this, young men with a smattering of botany have been packed off to the Forest seminaries of France and Germany for the peculiar education required.
It is not now our object to show how the government of India has suffered in the interval by the want of a proper system of forest training in Great Britain. Waste and spoliation went on, of course, uncontrolled. But we think that the raison d’être of a Forestry Exhibition will now be tolerably apparent to at least the majority of our readers. Indeed, the wonder is that Great Britain has so long remained quiescent under the implied reproach of neglecting what is not only a useful but a profitable branch of estate management. This reproach, which had long weighed on the minds of all those who had the good of the country at heart, at length found public expression at the meetings of the principal Societies of Scotland who represent the landed interest of the country, and resolutions were passed pledging their members to the support of a Forestry Exhibition.
Meanwhile, the great success of the Fisheries Exhibition in London had induced the executive Committee there to try and achieve for other industries similar benefits to what they had conferred on the fishermen of England. And they, too, pitched upon forestry as a branch of science well worthy of encouragement. But when it was represented to them that the same idea, first mooted in Scotland, had already assumed practical shape there, they courteously gave way, and conceded to Scotland the well-deserved right of holding in her capital the first Forestry Exhibition of Great Britain.
Nearly all the foreign powers and the representatives of our colonial and Indian empire are to be found in the list of those who have joined the undertaking as members. And the following letter, which has been sent to our diplomatic representatives abroad, rightly expresses the consensus of official and public opinion on the merit of the undertaking:
(CIRCULAR-COMMERCIAL.)
Foreign Office, October 27, 1883.
The attention of Her Majesty’s government has been directed to a project for an International Exhibition of Forestry to be held in Edinburgh in the summer of 1884, the organisers of which are desirous of securing the co-operation therein of such foreign countries as the matter may concern. There is reason to believe that the proposed Exhibition, for which the necessary funds have been guaranteed, will be influentially and ably supported. The object is one which in the opinion of Her Majesty’s government deserves every encouragement, scientific forestry having hitherto been much neglected in this country; and I have therefore to request that you will bring the Exhibition in question to the notice of the government to which you are accredited, as being one in which their participation might be attended with advantage to both countries. I inclose for communication to the proper quarters copies of programme and other documents connected with the proposed Exhibition, which have been supplied by the Committee.
I am, with great truth, your most obedient humble servant,
Signed (for Earl Granville)
Edmond Fitzmaurice.
With this letter, we may fitly close the contemplation of the causes which have led to the idea of a Forestry Exhibition being held in Great Britain. They are, in fact, briefly summed up in the short but comprehensive dictum, which, we fear, cannot be contradicted or gainsayed, ‘scientific forestry having hitherto been much neglected in this country.’ And the inverse of this proposition leads us by no indirect steps to the consideration of the good results which may be expected to accrue from the Exhibition, if it is successfully conducted.
To the capital of Scotland, a country lying between the two great fields of the ‘lumbering’ interest of the world—the one in Northern Europe, and the other on the continent of America, the results, if only from the influx of visitors, whether these are scientifically disposed or otherwise, can hardly fail to be beneficial. But there are wider interests involved. The landed proprietor anxious to utilise his present wastes and to make up for deficient rents by profitable planting—the political economist inquiring into new sources of revenue—the botanist uncertain of the right names and uses of some of his specimens of timber or of flowers—the geologist, the sportsman, and the naturalist, will find here a common ground of instruction and amusement. For we may hope to see gathered together the forest products of the world, carefully examined and authentically named; the various descriptions of machines used in different countries for preparing timber for constructive purposes; the timber slips placed on the hills, the sluices, dams, and embankments formed on the rivers for the transporting of wood by land or by water; the mechanical appliances used for moving growing trees, and the saw-mills for cutting them into sections when felled. Here, too, will be exhibited the various textile fabrics manufactured from bark; materials for the making of paper; tanning and dyeing substances; drugs and spices; gums, resins, wood-oils and varnishes. Another section will embrace botanical specimens, fungi and lichens, forest entomology and natural history; with fossil plants and the various trees found in bogs.
The literature of the subject will be illustrated by the Reports of Forest schools, the working plans of plantations, which show the age of the various woods on an estate, and the stage of growth at which they may most profitably be thinned or felled. Remarkable or historical trees will be represented by paintings, photographs, and drawings; and there will be sketches of the usual forest operations.
Collections of forest produce, specially illustrating the sources of supply, and the methods of manufacture in different provinces, with accompanying Reports, are solicited by the Committee. And essays on all subjects touching on the value of growing trees or timber are invited to competition for prizes. Here, again, is opened a very wide field of useful inquiry for all those interested in the planting of woods in our own or foreign countries; for the cultivators of cinchona and other barks in our Crown colonies; for wood-engravers, whose supply of hard wood for the purposes of their trade is now very limited; for ship-builders, anxious to get a substitute for teak, or to obtain an increased supply of that most useful timber; and for all who use wood or forest produce in any of the many forms of manufacture in which they are applied.
We may not enter into any further categorical enumeration of the purposes and objects of the Forestry Exhibition of 1884; for, if the contemplation of the great cause which primarily led to the idea of the undertaking has brought us insensibly to the enumeration of the good that may be expected to accrue from its successful issue, it seems needless to insist that the probable results of that success will benefit the commercial interests and the scientific knowledge of the world at large. [Particulars of the Exhibition may be obtained from Mr George Cadell, secretary, 3 George IV. Bridge, Edinburgh.]