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to the scanty population and their inaccessibility, had hitherto remained untouched by man, were ruined in order to supply the demands. No supervision was exercised over the work. Large numbers of trees were felled in the forests without reference to the possibility of extracting the logs, numbers of which remained in situ unutilised, to be subsequently burnt in the jungle fires. It was the aftermath of the Mutiny, and unfortunately within a few years damage was done to these fine forests which has exercised all the skill and knowledge of the Forest Department to repair, and will take many more years to complete. This exploitation on the old lines occurred in the first years of the newly reconstituted Government in India. In Bombay, Madras and Burma, especially in the latter Province under Mr. Brandis, as will be shown, some progress in true forest administration was attempted, as a result of the enunciation by Lord Dalhousie of a definite Forest Policy. And notable beginnings were made in the Central Provinces and the Punjab, as will be detailed. In the N.W. Provinces, Oudh, Bengal and Assam, conservancy was only in the initial stages at the close of the period here dealt with.

The old East India Company did not long survive the Mutiny. The same storm which drove the last of the Moguls from Delhi to exile and death in Burma destroyed the great Company whose sovereignty had been founded on the crumbling ruins of the Mogul Empire. The East India Company had failed to advance with the times. They had continued to govern India as they had commenced sixty years and more before. The Mutiny had increased the debt; repeated financial crises had been the outcome of their rule in the latter years; private enterprise and trading were discouraged, the great resources of the country remained undeveloped, and the commerce of the country was negligible.

The British people recognised that the form of government, which led to the Mutiny, had failed; and the subsequent publicity given to the maladministration of the country justified this view. The "double Government" of the Crown and the Company was no longer possible, and the entire administration was therefore assumed by the nation.

On the 1st November, 1858, a royal proclamation, issued throughout British India, declared the sovereignty of Queen Victoria as Empress of India.

The assumption of the duty of governing India by the

British people was to have far-reaching results in a great development in the prosperity of the country. And the forests, amongst other sources of public utility and wealth, were to be gradually brought under an efficient administration. That the importance of placing the forests under a proper system of conservation was fully realised before the close of the period the despatches of the Government of India and the Secretary of State, reproduced in the last chapter of this volume, will sufficiently indicate.

Mr. Brandis could not have taken up his work at a more opportune moment. For if the past is any criterion to the future the great work he was able to accomplish for the conservation of the Indian forests would have proved impossible under the system of administration developed by the East India Company in the plenitude of their power.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE BEGINNINGS OF FOREST CONSERVANCY IN THE MADRAS

I

PRESIDENCY, 1858-1864

DR. CLEGHORN'S WORK IN MADRAS

T has been already shown that in August, 1856, Dr. Cleghorn submitted a Report to the Government of Madras, containing proposals for establishing Forest Conservancy. These proposals were forwarded to the Government of India for sanction, which was accorded in November. On the 19th December, 1856, Cleghorn was appointed Conservator of Forests in the Presidency of Madras.

During the next five years the Conservator toured through various portions of the Presidency, and submitted three General Reports on the forests and his suggestions for the introduction of an efficient protection and general prescriptions of management. These Reports, with other official documents and some unofficial papers, he subsequently incorporated in his book, Forests and Gardens of Southern India, published in 1861, during a period of sick leave at home. This little book, consisting principally of official documents, did not aim at being a treatise on forestry administration in a scientific sense. It was too early for that. But it served its purpose in bringing before the public a totally unknown and, at that time, unattempted branch of Indian administration, and thus, as Brandis subsequently acknowledged, "did much to promote Forest Conservancy in India." It forms an invaluable record of the work accomplished by Cleghorn during this period. He kept his attention focused on the chief points with regard to the protection of the forests, which had for so long been crying aloud for consideration and immediate action, and his recommendations on these heads were a move in the right direction.

Cleghorn sounded the right note, heard almost for the first time in India, on the subject of the necessity of studying the

sylviculture of the forests, laying considerable stress on the necessity of the Forest Officer acquiring a sound knowledge of the principal trees and shrubs, as well as of the climate, soil and forest growth in the different tracts. With reference to that urgent need, the protection of the forests from the improvident acts of the people and the destructive ones of the timber merchant, and even the official, Cleghorn studied the chief sources of injuries to which the forests were subjectedfires, Kumri cultivation, and indiscriminate and uncontrolled cutting, and made strong and wise suggestions to counter and put a stop to these evils. The outcome of his persistent representations was at the time a marked success; in spite of the considerable official, as well as non-official, opposition in several quarters-opposition which a study of the previous history of forest operations will have shown to be inevitable. By an order of May, 1860, the Government of Madras prohibited Kumri cultivation in Government forests without previous permission having been obtained, and directed that this permission should be given sparingly, and never for areas in timber forests. Cleghorn was thus able to secure the application of a measure to the forests of the Madras Presidency, which he had helped to bring into force in the Mysore Forests thirteen years before with, in both cases, most beneficial results for the country and its inhabitants. In securing this great step towards the protection of the forests, he was greatly assisted by the respect and friendship with which he was regarded by the natives. As a medical man his name was widely known amongst them, and this fortunate factor in itself gave him great influence amongst the people. They trusted him and believed in the disinterested nature of his work and proposals, and were aware that he had an intimate knowledge of their mode of life and system of agriculture both of which, by the way, are indispensable to the good Forest Officer. Cleghorn's popularity with the people and his known keenness for their welfare, so universally acknowledged, was naturally common knowledge amongst the higher officials whose confidence he enjoyed; and to this personal factor, more especially in the light of the subsequent retrograde policy introduced, may be attributed the signal initial success secured by the Conservator in this important matter of protection. It may be mentioned here, in order to maintain the sequence in the narrative, that at a later period Mysore, for a time, again allowed Kumri cultivation within

her forest areas, whilst in Madras the effects of the order of 1860 were subsequently rendered nugatory by the unfortunate tendency of the Madras Government to regard as private property, in default of a proper settlement, a large portion of the forest lands, particularly in South Canara, which had formerly been considered to be the property of Government. This policy caused great injury to the Presidency itself, and to the people generally.

This view of the forestry question, directly traceable to the history of the forests of the previous half-century, was to persist, in fact, for another score of years, and to result in Madras falling from her pride of place as the first Presidency in India to inaugurate the preliminary steps in a true forest conservancy.

For although Bombay appointed the first Conservator, in Dr. Gibson, to Cleghorn, as will be told, the Government of India itself accorded this recognition for the Madras Presidency.

Cleghorn also took up the question of providing from the forests the supplies of timber, charcoal and firewood required without over-cutting and destroying the former. In this connection he commenced the introduction of a suitable arrangement of fellings, in order to secure the maintenance and promote the natural regeneration of the forests. He also devoted attention to plantation work and visited the Nilumbur plantations of which he expressed high approval.

He organised a Forestry Department, establishments for the protection and proper management of the forests being set up in all the districts; and as a beginning to the comprehensive forest legislation which was to come, local rules for the management of the forests, which were sufficient for the time being, were, on his recommendation, issued by the Madras Government.

Cleghorn's Report on the Nilumbur Teak Plantations, written after a visit paid to them in August, 1857, is of high interest. He prefaced his remarks by saying that the demand for teak timber was then so very great and so steadily on the increase as to indicate that at no distant period a scarcity of large-sized logs would inevitably arise. The scarcity was now being realised, especially as so much was required to meet the purposes of the new Railway Department. He strongly advocated that the plantation work should be increased, as Malabar teak was acknowledged to be the most valuable

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