T INTRODUCTION HIS History of the Forests of India and the growth of the Indian Forest Service has been written with the object of tracing the various stages through which the forests have passed during the development of the country under British rule. The aim kept in view has been to present to the Indian Forest Officer and the members of the other services in India who have a more or less direct or indirect connection with the forests, in detailed narrative form the progress of Forestry in the different Provinces of the country, and the steps by which that progress has been achieved. Ribbentrop's Forestry in British India, an invaluable work, has been the only account available to date. It was published in 1900. Personally I have felt the want, both during my service in India and since, of a work in somewhat greater detail and brought up to date. The great difficulty experienced in dealing with the records available at the India Office and in India has been to make such a selection of material as would present a true picture of the various stages the forests of the country have passed through. My work has been greatly facilitated by the presence in the University of Edinburgh of the Cleghorn Library, Dr. Hugh Cleghorn, styled in a notification of the Government of India in 1865 as "The Father of Indian Forestry," having bequeathed his valuable collection of books and reports to the University. The present volume of this History takes the reader up to the year 1864, when, with the appointment of Sir D. Brandis as the first Inspector-General of Forests in India, the Forest Service gradually came into being. The greater part of this period deals with the continued devastation of the forests by timber merchants in order to supply the Government's requirements and by the people carrying on on the lines which had been in force for centuries; but it will be shown that towards the end of the period a full realization of the value of the forest estate had been come to by the Secretary of State and the Government of India. It may be added that this recognition of the value of the forests was to no slight extent due to the work and warnings of a small number of officials chiefly of the Medical Service; but also, in some notable instances, Civil and Military Members of the Civil and Political Services who at various times during the period in question had taken particular interest in the forests of the country. Whilst engaged upon the History I have become impressed with the fact that this work will prove not only of value to India, but to the younger forestry services under the Colonial Office. Many of these are in the position with which India was faced half a century ago. Shifting cultivation is practised over extensive areas; the firing of the forests and unchecked grazing are still rife; methods of exploiting the forests by timber merchants or the local population are still far from being organised on up-to-date lines, and so forth. A study of how these practices were gradually checked and order brought into the forestry estate in the different Provinces throughout India (and the steps taken were by no means the same in each) should prove of considerable value to the Colonial Forest Services. In addition to an index I have added a short glossary of the Indian words, made use of in old reports, etc., consulted, where quoted in the text. I would wish to offer my thanks for the permission so kindly conceded me by the Secretary of State for India and the Government of India to make use of such records and reports as I required. My thanks are also due to the officials at the India Office, notably Mr William Foster, C.I.E., Registrar and Superintendent of Records, and to the officials in India. who have kindly made accessible to me old records and returns. The illustrations call for special mention. It seemed desirable that these should be as representative as possible of the period dealt with in this volume. To this end I have reproduced a few from Cleghorn's Forests and Gardens of Southern India. For others I am indebted to some old albums in the India Office Library. The illustration of Dr. Hooker is a reproduction of a portrait hanging on a wall at the India Office. Of the remainder a few are my own, and the rest are from the Collection at the Research Institute at Dehra Dun, kindly made available by Mr. W. F. Perree, C.I.E., President, with the permission of the Government of India. Finally, I would also wish to thank my friend, Sir Sainthill Eardley Wilmot, K.C.I.E., who kindly read through the proofs, and Mr. J. S. Gamble, C.I.E., F.R.S., for information given me which facilitated my work. E. P. STEBBING THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH October, 1921 |