that in order to train his staff, for it is after joining a Division that they have to learn the art, the Divisional Officer in India might for a few years adopt the practice of a Divisional Officer (Inspecteur) in France. In the French Division the thinnings to be undertaken in any year are all laid down beforehand, sanctioned by the Conservator and a definite period between which they must be marked is fixed. The Inspecteur spends several days or weeks on the work. For any particular compartment he collects a couple or more of his Rangers and several Forest Guards-the number depending upon the size of the area to be thinned at the time. These men assemble at the appointed spot and the work is carried out by this force under the eye of the Inspecteur, who must enter up the register himself. During the past five years the author has attended many such parties and the acknowledged expert amongst them has as often been an old Forest Guard or Junior Ranger (Brigadier). But, and the point is an important one, these men have been taught by their Inspecteur in this very way. And the young officers joining from Nancy are taught in the same fashion. This important operation is shown and explained to the probationerstudent and he carries out practical lessons in it under supervision. But it takes a varying period of years to become more or less proficient at thinning work. A youth of a year's service has not such experience. The author does not pretend to suggest the method by which the responsible officers on the spot will solve this problem. But coming back to India with, so to speak, a fresh eye, and, it must be admitted, with no real idea of the progress he was to meet, he would like to record the opinion forced upon him. Going from Province to Province it became more and more apparent that the chief work facing the Divisional Forest Officer in India at the present day and in future, preoccupied as he is and will be with many other matters, is this question of ensuring each year that the thinning work in his charge is adequately carried out by officers who know the business. Failing this, the future of the forests, and an increased revenue, is not being assured; and without such assurance the Forest Officer is no longer fulfilling his charge. For, as has been so often said, the Forest Officer thinks in centuries. Translated this means, if it means anything, that his first thought is the sylvicultural necessities of his young and middle-aged crops in order that in due season they may produce a full yield,

CHAPTER XVII

AFFORESTATION WORK IN INDIA

IRRIGATED AND NON-IRRIGATED PLANTATIONS IN THE PUNJAB AND UNITED PROVINCES

T

HE work in connection with the formation of plantations in India such as the Nilambur and Ootacamund plantations in Madras, the teak plantations in Burma and elsewhere, and the Changa Manga irrigated plantation in the Punjab, which form the classic examples of this branch of the activities of the Department in the past, has been alluded to in previous chapters. In two Provinces of India, the Punjab and the United Provinces, afforestation schemes have in recent years acquired a far greater significance in the economy of the sister Provinces as a whole.

It is proposed in the present chapter to review the remarkable development which has taken place, and the important part which the afforestation work is likely to have in the development of large tracts of country. A knowledge of the lines upon which the schemes are being undertaken should not only prove of service to other parts of India, but equally to other portions of the Empire where great canalization and colonization schemes are in progress, or where areas of barren and sun-scorched land may be made productive through afforestation.

THE IRRIGATED PLANTATIONS OF THE PUNJAB

Perhaps the first instance in modern times of a plantation of any size being formed with the aid of artificial irrigation is furnished by the Changa Manga Plantation which was started, as has been shown (p. 131), in 1866. The raising of trees by means of irrigation (i.e. canal water) had a much more ancient origin, and was probably a natural sequence to the earliest

construction of a canal system. That the first English rulers realized the advantages to be attained from, and the necessity of establishing, tree-growth in the plains of the Punjab is apparent from a Report written by the then Lieutenant-Colonel Napier soon after the annexation. This Report had reference to the Bari Doab Canal project of 1850, an extract from which has been already quoted on pp. 286, 287, in Volume II. Plantations were commenced on the canal. The question of the provision of fuel for the population, and a decade later for the steamers of the Indus flotilla, and still later for the new projected railways, gave to this matter an increasing importance; although on the treatment of the rakh lands the Punjab Government did not see eye to eye with the forestry advisers, Brandis and Cleghorn (I, p. 492). Dr. Stewart, the first Conservator of Forests in the Punjab, submitted a Report on the supply of fuel for the Punjab Railway and the Indus steamers in 1864. He summarized the sources of supply as: (1) the outer ranges of the Himalaya, where a more or less permanent supply was available; (2) Canal Plantations, to be created or further developed by Canal Officers, the work having been already commenced on the Bari Doab Canal; (3) Railway plantations, to be formed as near fuelling stations as possible. The Secretary of State subsequently refused to allow the Railways to form their own plantations (II, p. 289); (4) The Rakhs, arid scrub forests. It was estimated that the rakh areas adjacent to the railway line would be "only capable of supplying the river steamers and Punjab for three years." The lines upon which Stewart and his successors dealt with the problem have been previously discussed. It has been necessary to recapitulate the earlier stages of this fuel problem in order that the significance of its later development may be appreciated. If the fuel requirements of the population, and the timber demands of the Public Works and others, chiefly provided from the hill forests be omitted, the three crucial factors dominating the position were the canals, railways and the Indus flotilla. The raison d'être of canal construction was to bring under cultivation, by means of irrigation, the rakh areas, a considerable proportion of which, though covered with a poor scrub forest, would become valuable arable land the moment water could be brought to them. Both the steamers and railways consumed fuel. It became obvious that in process of time the demands of the former would decrease whilst the latter would increase, although the rate of increase of the railway require

ments was far from being realized, as the old Reports, which speak of one daily up and down train, and later three, forming the basis of estimation of the fuel supplies, readily display. That the Forest Department contemplated the growing of trees by the Canal Department as part of the duties of the Canal Officers was due to the fact that in these early days the former was chiefly preoccupied with the forests in the hills, as has been already described (II, Chap. VII). The increasing demands for fuel by the extending railway resulted in a great impulse being given to plantation work, and the rakh dispute (I, p. 495) was settled by the Government of India deciding in 1869-70 that all rakhs available for the supply of fuel should be made over to the Department. A new Plantation Division was formed and plantation work was concentrated (p. 131 ante). The Punjab had taken the first step in the path of future progress in this respect, and as the years went by the Changa Manga plantation had a world-wide notoriety amongst foresters. A considerable area of the rakhs was managed by the Department as fuel and fodder reserves, and the railway demands for fuel for their locomotives were fully met until, in 1905, wood fuel was finally replaced by coal, and an economic step, which had seemed unrealizable to the Engineers in 1865 (II, p. 285), became a reality. So far as the Forest Department was concerned the railways and steamers thus disappeared as factors of importance in relation to fuel supplies. The third factor, the canals, remained, coupled with the greatly increased demands of the population for fuel and timber. In the administration of the plains of the Punjab the Canal, in other words the Irrigation Department, had grown rapidly in importance, as in so arid a country it was certain to do. With the change in the type of fuel used by the railways the reason for maintaining a large area of rakh scrub forest disappeared. During the past twenty years, with the wonderful development of the irrigation works of the Province, an ever-increasing area of such land has been given up by the Forest Department and placed under cultivation. In other words, the colonization ofɗ the Punjab has made rapid progress. It is only a question of a few years before all the rakh areas taken over by the Forest Department in 1869 will have been handed back to the Civil Department to come under irrigated arable crops. During his visit to the Punjab in April (1925) the author was astonished by the great areas of golden crops he passed through, occupying lands which formerly he had known as arid scrub. The rate

at which these areas of unclassed" rakh forest have been dwindling is shown from the following figures:

The great decrease of rakh forest lands under the Department from over 6 lakhs of acres in 1894-5 to a little over 96,000 acres in 1924-5 furnishes evidence of the effect canal construction has had on the areas in the plains under the Department. The policy which was being followed was economically sound, since to retain any area under forest, whether scrub or timber, which can be made to produce food is, under most conditions, wrong. Also the success of irrigation schemes of any magnitude depends upon being able to place a considerable tract under crops. The mere fact of bringing extensive treeless areas under crops, which enables the settlement of a large and new population on the terrain, necessitates in its turn adequate provision being made for its requirements in fuel, timber and other produce of the forests. The Forest Authority in the Province realizes that as the new colonization progresses an increase is to be anticipated in this connection. Further, that cotton ginneries and mills are likely to arise with little way-side stations which rapidly become centres of trade, all of which will entail larger demands for forest produce. Further, that the plantations from which these requirements can be supplied cost little or nothing to Government to create, even during the process of formation, as will be shown later.

In order to appreciate the position of the Forest Department in this matter vis-à-vis the Irrigation Department, it will be necessary to review briefly the aims and policy of the latter Department, which is transforming extensive areas of the arid barren plains of the Punjab into wonderfully rich cropproducing lands. It would be difficult to find a finer instance of successful and far-sighted British statesmanship and administration than the transformation scene which has taken