'A board of management, consisting of the director, inspector, and two professors, has the charge of expenditures to the amount of 300 roubles, say £37 10s, to be sanctioned by the director; the expenditure of sums between 1000 and 5000 roubles, say £125 to £625, require the sanction of the council, and the expenditure of sums above this amount that of the Ministry. These meetings are held weekly.
'The general instruction embraces geometry and practical mechanics, geodesy, plan drawing and land surveying, physics, meteorology and climatology, chemistry, zoology, botany, mineralogy, agricultural technology, soil, cubic increase of trees by growth, architecture, political economy, and statistics of Russia; laws of land tenure and more particularly of the tenure of land in Poland; bookkeeping, drawing and preparation of diagrams and plans.
'The special subjects of study in the agricultural section are analytical and agricultural chemistry, agricultural mechanics, breeding and rearing of cattle, sheep, poultry, and bees; sericulture and pisciculture, and veterinary science and practice.
'In the department of forestry the special subjects of study are forest botany and entomology; forest management and taxation, or calculations of the cubic contents, prospective growth, pecuniary value, &c., of the trees; and forest statistics of Russia and of Poland.
' The instruction is communicated in the Russian language. Each professor and tutor is required to give six lectures a week, and teachers to spend twelve hours a week in class duties. The professors may be required to lecture in both departments.
' The session extends from the 20th of August to the 18th June, O.S.
' All books requisite for study are in the library.
'Students are required to be seventeen years of age, to have attended a high school, and satisfactorily passed the prescribed examination. They wear a uniform, are required to maintain a becoming behaviour, and to be obedient and respectful to their teachers. If any be retained for two years in any class, and be still unable to pass, they are dismissed. Medals, &c., are given to students in recognition of merit.
' The rights of the institution as a first-class college, and the rights of the professors as officers of the Imperial civil service, are formally secured.
' The salary of the director is 3,500 roubles, say £450, with noble rank of the fifth class and civil service pension, The salaries of the inspector and professors are 2000 roubles, say £250,* with noble rank of the sixth class, and corresponding pension.'
* The rate of. exchange varies. These calculations were correct at the time I received the information. At this time (1885), according to the present rate of exchange, they would be respectively £350 and £250.
I spent in St. Peterburg the summer of 1878, and I was invited to attend a congress of Russian foresters, to be held in Warsaw about the time of my return to England; but a similar congress of German foresters was held about the same time in Dresden, and 1 found it more expedient to return by Saxony.
The correspondent of the St. Petersburg Exchange Gazette, writing from Warsaw under date of 22nd August, 1878, O.S., gave the following account of the foresters' conference held there: —