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McClelland wrote a second Report on his inspection of the forests lying to the north of those visited previously on the feeders of the Hlaine, Phoungyee and Pegu streams. The northern forests were situated on the main ridge and spurs of the Yoma, a chain of hills which divides the waters of the Irrawaddy and Sittang Rivers. A portion of the forests east of the Sittang was also visited. The forests west of the Irrawaddy on the spurs of the Arakan Mountains were not visited.

The Commissioner's letter and remarks forwarding the second Report to the Government of India are dated August 4th, 1855, whereas the Government of India's Minute, quoted above, is dated August 3rd, 1855. Consequently some of the observations in the Superintendent's Report and others in the Commissioner's covering letter had already been dealt with in the Minute, which had not been received at the time in Pegu.

It becomes obvious, however, from both Report and covering letter and other correspondence which had passed between the Superintendent and the Commissioner, that the two held very divergent views on questions affecting the forest administration and policy of very considerable importance. It is equally apparent that on main principles the Government of India sided with McClelland. But more than a year elapsed before this vindication of the latter's opinions reached the Commissioner, as expressed in the Forest Charter. During the year relations became more strained, and after submitting his second Report McClelland resigned the appointment of Superintendent and went home on furlough.

There can be little doubt that for the period to which the history of the forests in India had attained, McClelland had the makings of a good Forest Officer in him, and his loss would have been a severe one had not his post been filled so shortly after by Mr. Dietrich Brandis.

A brief notice of McClelland's second Report will be of interest to render the narrative complete.

After dealing with the physical geography of the country, the localities of the several teak forests, the trees associated with the teak, of which he included a botanical list as an appendix to the Report, and so forth, the Superintendent discussed the question which, as has been shown, proved so difficult in the Tenasserim Forests, of the efficient protection of the young teak trees in the forests from destructive agencies,

and the extension of the forests by planting. McClelland was of opinion that the expense of planting and protecting young trees-he made no allusion to the necessity for properly thinning the plantations, which would require an adequate trained staff-would be greater than the value of the timber to be derived from such a system, whilst the risk of loss from various causes would be considerable. There was no want of natural seedlings in the forests, and he recommended that a portion of these young trees should be transplanted to suitable adjoining localities. This, he said, could be effected by means of a small number of labourers being employed temporarily for a few weeks of each year, under the existing establishment. He also recommended, and the Commissioner supported the recommendation, that rewards should be paid to the subordinate forest officials who kept their forests in the best order and carried out the largest extensions, a suggestion of somewhat doubtful value when it is remembered that the whole staff was entirely untrained.

The Superintendent also drew attention to the damage done by fires and to the pernicious effects of the toungya cultivation, practised in forest areas by the Karens and Burmans. He strongly recommended that the Burmans at least, who were really natives of the low country, should be prohibited from carrying on this form of cultivation, and should be made to settle in the plains and practise a more settled form of agriculture. The Commissioner considered that this proposal would entail a great hardship on these people, that "to tell them to change their mode of life with their country, to descend to the plains and cultivate paddy (rice) land, without ploughs and without bullocks, would be a cruel mockery." The Commissioner does not appear to have realised that the first efforts of a stable and civilised Government should have been to endeavour to raise and ameliorate the condition of the people by inducing them to undertake a more settled and stable manner of life.

A difference of opinion had arisen between the Superintendent and the Commissioner as to the ownership of felled timber lying in the forests. The former contended that this timber belonged to Government. He was overruled, however, by the Commissioner, who maintained that all timber felled in the forests, but not extracted at the time of the annexation, belonged to the private individuals under whose orders it had been felled, in spite of the fact that it was known that the

actual purchasers of the timber never went into the forests themselves, and consequently never actually paid for the timber until it had been brought out of the forests. As has been shown, the Governor-General's Minute, dated the day before the Commissioner wrote the above letter on the Superintendent's second Report, definitely disposed of the Phayre's contentions. But the Commissioner's order to McClelland that this timber should be allowed to be taken out of the forest resulted in a considerable loss of public revenue before the receipt of the Governor-General's decision in the matter.

McClelland resigned in the middle of 1855, just when he might have hoped, with the ruling of the Governor-General directly against the spirit in which the Commissioner was endeavouring to initiate his own ideas of a forest policy, to have been able to make some considerable progress. Dr. Brandis was appointed as Superintendent of Forests in Pegu in January, 1856, the Forests of Tenasserim and Martaban being placed under his charge in the following year. He commenced the great task which lay before him by working on the lines his predecessor had suggested. Possessed of considerable force of character and a sound judgment based on a thorough scientific training in Forestry-being the first fully qualified Forest Officer appointed in the Indian EmpireBrandis laid, in the face of strenuous opposition from the European and Native timber merchants, the foundations of the Forest Department in Burma; and ultimately of the Forest Service in India.

In the autumn of 1856 new Rules were drawn up and published in January, 1857, to bring the Pegu Forests under regular conservancy, and for preventing their destruction by the removal of all the mature, marketable, seed-bearing trees, while a rough working plan was framed for regulating the killing and felling of teak for extraction. Brandis obtained a preliminary enumeration of the number of teak trees in the forests by his now famous linear valuation surveys, etc. These operations will be more fully described in the next period, which covers Brandis' work in Burma before his translation to India and the Inspector-Generalship of Forests.

CHAPTER XV

FOREST OPERATIONS IN THE PUNJAB, WESTERN HIMALAYA AND SIND, 1850-1857

W

ITH the development in the construction of public buildings, and to a less extent communications, which set in in the Punjab in the middle of the century after the annexation of the Province, a dearth of the necessary timber soon made itself felt. Deodar was the wood chiefly in use and required.

In 1851 the Governor-General, Lord Dalhousie, appointed Captain Longden, H.M. 10th Foot, to carefully explore and report on the forests of the whole of the Western Himalayan Range from Chamba eastwards to the north of Simla. This duty was carried out in 1852-3 with great energy and remarkable judgment. Captain Longden was a man of exceptional physique and powers of endurance, and in the performance of this work he penetrated into regions of the Himalaya, which had been previously visited by but few Europeans. His Report, though brief in its contents, was a highly useful document, affording data on the forests of the regions which proved extremely valuable.

As an outcome of his investigations, after inspecting the forests of the territories bordering on the Sutlej, Beas, Ravi and Chenab Rivers, he recommended the establishment of an Agency on the Chenab, and the depôt formed near Sealkote was destined to supply the principal Public Works of the Punjab with the timber they required during the next twelve years. Longden also prepared some good Forest Charts of Mandi, Sukhet and Kulu.

Previous to Longden's deputation on this work, Mr. E. Prinsep, C.S., at the time Assistant Commissioner of Sealkote, visited the Padar and Kishtawar districts to inspect the deodar forests in the Maharaja Golab Singh's territories (Kashmir), and effect arrangements for the supply of materials

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