many confirmations of the law of distribution I have thus roughly stated from observations that have presented themselves to me as a Forester and a sportsman. This is worthy, I think, of further investigation."

Allusion has already been made to the fact (I, p. 392) that little was known on the forest resources of the Central Provinces when the Province was constituted. The areas were very large and by some were considered to contain inexhaustible forests. Others thought that the hopes built upon their resources as a source of supply of material for the railways would not be realised. But the true position of the forests was very far from being appreciated. It was only their detailed exploration which revealed the extent to which the forest areas had been exhausted of large timber. And their devastation was mainly attributable, as has been shown was the case in other parts of India, to the practice of shifting cultivation, known in Central India as "dhya." The method of procedure carried out by the aborigines in the Central Provinces was lucidly described by Forsyth and has already been detailed (I, p. 398).

Forsyth commented strongly on the absence of communications in the Province at the time. He pointed out that owing to this state of affairs the railways were importing pine sleepers from Norway and ironwood from Australia, as they proved cheaper than the carriage of sâl sleepers from the great untapped forests of this species in the Province. "There is something wrong," he wrote, "where this is the case, and that something is the want of a good road into the sâl regions from the railway at Jubbulpur, which road should have been made, for many other reasons (to open up the rich cotton soils to cultivation and export) besides this, long ago." About thirty years later the same state of affairs existed in a division in which the writer served as an Assistant, in Chota Nagpur, the Assansol-Nagpur branch of the Assam-Bengal railway being laid with iron "pot" sleepers instead of with sâl, although parts of the line passed through magnificent sâl forests. The surplus timber from these forests was subsequently cut and sent up to the United Provinces to sleeper a railway there, as will be described elsewhere.

The sâl forests of this region did not, however, escape devastation from the shifting or dhya cultivation. Thousands of square miles of sâl forest had been destroyed by the Bygas under this form of cultivation, the ground becoming afterwards

occupied by a dense scrub of low sâl bushes springing from the stumps. And, as mentioned by Forsyth, the largest trees were everywhere girdled by these aborigines to allow the gum resin of the sâl (the "dammer" of commerce) to exude. This dammer resin (called dhök in these parts) was extensively used at this period as a pitch in dockyards, and for coating commercial packages.

The common method of extraction was to cut a ring of bark out of the tree three or four feet from the ground when the gum exudes in large bubbles. Cuts made in several half circles are equally effective and do not kill the tree, as is the case with the former method. One of the first acts of the newly constituted Forest Department was to prohibit the ringing of sâl trees for the extraction of "dammer," but the practice was still continued in the vast area of sâl forests in the Native States, which were amply sufficient to supply the requirements of the trade at that time. Practically the only commercial transactions of the Bygas with the representatives of the plains merchants was the sale of dammer and lac. These representatives journeyed annually into the hills with pack-bullocks and obtained the dammer and lac in exchange for salt, beads and arrow-poison.

Fortunately Forsyth leaves us a lucid description of the position of the teak forests of this region as existing at the period.

"As regards the teak forests, the supply available for railway uses had already been much reduced from the causes mentioned. A good deal was, however, still left in the remoter forests, where communications were not so easy; and the forests, if properly taken in hand, might have yielded a steady supply of large timber for many years. But unfortunately the grave mistake was now made of announcing that after a certain time the forests would be brought under Government management and strictly conserved. This was the deathblow to the remainder of the teak throughout the northern parts of the tract. The railway contractors and numerous speculators, foreseeing the value that timber was likely to acquire, owing to railway operations and the closing of the forests, then went into the jungles with bags of rupees in their hands, and spread them broadcast among the wild tribes, with instructions to slay and spare not-to fell every teak tree larger than a sapling that they could find, and mark them with their peculiar mark. It was only too faithfully done;

and scarcely anything that was accessible escaped the axe. Now came delay in the railway works, failure of the contractors and want of money. The cut timber was abandoned wholesale where it lay. Teak wood is full of oil and burns readily after lying for a short time. The jungle fires occurred as usual in the long grass where the logs were lying, and the great majority of them were burnt! The exact amount of the destruction can never be known. For years afterwards, when exploring in the forests, we continued to come on the charred remains of multitudes of these slaughtered innocents, most of them being quite immature and unfit for felling at any time. All that were worth anything were saved by the Forest Department in after years, and the value even of these amounted to many lacs of rupees. They were not a hundredth part of those that were cut, which should probably be reckoned by millions rather than thousands. The injury done to the forests and to the country by this most mistaken measure may never be recovered; certainly it cannot be recovered in less than two generations of the people's life. Such was one of the most material results of the utter ignorance of the administrative officers of that period regarding everything connected with the wilder portions of their charge. The mischief had been completed, and most of the timber speculators had bolted from their creditors, leaving their logs smoking in the forests, before the formation of the Central Provinces, and ere the Forest Department had entered on their labour of exploring and arranging for the protection of what was still worth looking after."

Fifty years have passed since this vivid description of the deplorable aftermath of the Mutiny was written, and the present state of improvement which scientific Forest Conservancy has already brought to these ruined forests forms an eloquent testimony to the high efficiency of the Forest Officers who have followed each other in the care of this great charge. It proved heartbreaking work at first, and another fifty years must in all probability elapse before the forests of this region can hope to have approached (not reached) to some degree of normality.

It will be remembered (I, p. 396) that during Brandis' visit to the Central Provinces and tour of inspection with Pearson in 1863 it had been settled that the latter should make an attempt to protect one or more of his forest areas from fire. That it would be possible to introduce into India

the protection of the forests from fire was openly derided by probably all district Civil Officers and most of the existing Forest Officers. That this attitude was a natural one to take up is easy to realise when the fact is borne in mind that from time immemorial the forests had been burnt annually over larger or smaller areas, either purposely to obtain an early crop of young grass with the arrival of the first rains or from sheer carelessness. Michael had made an attempt in the Anaimalais in the 'fifties without much success. Brandis himself whilst in Burma had stated that it was too early yet in the history of Forest Conservancy to attempt to introduce fire protection. Nevertheless, it was settled that Pearson should institute the first trial, and the areas selected with Brandis' approval were one block in the Bori Forest at the foot of the Pachmarhi Hills and a second block in the Jugmundel Forest of the Kormeyr plateau in the Mandla Hills. Both the forests selected for this purpose were capable of isolation by the natural features of the country, and were in other ways well adapted for the experiment. For carrying out the work in the Bori Forest, Pearson obtained the services of Lieutenant (afterwards Colonel) Doveton, Ist M.I. Pearson attributes the great success which was achieved in this, the first, attempt made in India at protecting a forest from fire to the unremitting zeal and watchfulness, as well as the tact shown in dealing with the natives, displayed by Doveton. The Conservator rightly adds: "It is impossible to overestimate the importance of this success, as most Foresters and every Civil Officer in the country scouted the idea of forest protection from fire and everything connected with it, and had the attempt been a failure any progress in fire-protection elsewhere would have been rendered immeasurably more difficult." Fire protection was to play a great part in Forest Conservancy in India in the future, and as Pearson subsequently generously affirmed it was to Doveton (and we may add to the Conservator himself who planned the scheme on which Doveton acted) that the subsequent progress was largely due, in his classic example of the Bori reserve.

Douglas had charge of the fire-protection work in the Jugmundel reserve. The work here was not at first attended with the same success as in the Bori reserve. This was in no way attributed to any want of care on the part of that officer, but was solely due to the hostility of the "ahirs" in charge of herds of cattle which were brought up from the lowlands to

graze in the Mandla uplands. These people wanted to continue to burn the grass for their own purposes. Many a Forest Officer since then has been placed in a similar position to that with which Douglas was confronted, as will be mentioned in a later chapter on the protection of the forests.

Forsyth was Acting Conservator in 1864-5, and his Annual Forest Progress Report for that year is a most interesting document, although unfortunately too long for reproduction here. In it he shows clearly the great progress made in the forest conservation work during the brief period the Forest Department had been in existence. Demarcation work still absorbed the energies of the Forest Officers, but much other work, including a commencement in the protection of the forests, was accomplished.

Brandis had drawn up an outline of the heads upon which the Annual Forest Administration Reports of the provinces and administrations should be prepared in order to secure uniformity. These heads were as follows:

I. Survey and examination of forest tracts little known.
II. Demarcation of Reserved Government Forests.

III. Protection of the forests and work for their improvement.
IV. Selection of trees to be felled, and yield of forests.
V. Financial results.

Forsyth gives a detailed description of the work which had been carried out during the year under head I. On the subject of valuation surveys he has some remarks which were very apposite for the period at which they were written : "Valuation surveys, to be of any value to work from, are dependent on the existence of a really reliable map of the forest to be valued. Where the forests are so irregularly distributed, as they everywhere are in the Central Provinces, it can only lead to a treacherous semblance of certainty to count the trees in a given small portion of the area, and then estimate the aggregate number of trees over the whole area by a simple process of multiplication-two all-important points not having been ascertained, viz. what the whole area is, and whether the part counted was of average richness in trees. It would therefore be, in a great measure, a waste of time to attempt a valuation survey of a reserved tract before the tract has been mapped. In the meantime, however, steps have been taken to record full and accurate data regarding