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A FOREST SCENE, KONAIN, JAUNSAR, N. W. HIMALAYA. THIS PHOTOGRAPH EXHIBITS THE
TYPE OF DEODAR FOREST VISITED, BY THE DIHRA DUN SCHOOL STUDENTS ON THEIR
PRACTICAL COURSES

Photograph by H. Jackson

expanding Department, if it was ever to bear a remote resemblance in the amount of staff per acre or square mile in continental forests under scientific management, could ever be financially staffed unless a very considerable proportion of that staff in all grades was composed of natives of India who could be paid smaller salaries than the European. The opening was there and had been so from the start, but to the close of the century it had not been taken advantage of. With certain notable exceptions amongst Indians, who proved an honour both to their Department and their country, the work of the Department and the progress made in the development and protection of the forests was done by and due to the British officers.

CHAPTER XVI

THE PROGRESS MADE IN METHODS OF EXPLOITATION AND IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF COMMUNICATIONS AND BUILDINGS,

1871-1900

T

HE early methods of exploiting the forests of the country and the crude and wasteful ways in which the trees were felled and converted into logs or other material, such as rough planks, etc., have been described in previous chapters of this history. Where roads or slides had to be utilised for transport, their construction was of the rudest form, the high percentage of waste being treated as one of the inevitable outcomes of this class of work. The progress made in these directions up to the close of the century will be treated in the present chapter.

EXPLOITATION

Some considerable progress was made during the period in the methods of exploitation of the forests, but the species of timber trees utilised still remained for the most part the same as had been employed throughout the century. It is a curious fact, and rather indicative of the somewhat narrow groove into which the Department had fallen, that in spite of the very large number of first-class woods existing in the forests of India no departure of any magnitude had been made in placing on the market timbers up to then unused. It is true that timber markets and merchants are very conservative, and that the opposition of vested interests was, especially in the London markets, of a formidable nature. But the fact remains that it was not until a few years after the dawn of the twentieth century that any noteworthy departure from old well-ingrained methods was made.

Locally in India some of the less known species were utilised to a varying degree, but for the most part the timber trade would only buy the timber of teak, deodar, sâl (Shorea robusta),

sissu (Dalbergia Sissoo), blackwood (Dalbergia latifolia), khair or cutch (Acacia Catechu), sandal (Santalum album), babul or kikar (Acacia arabica), tun (Cedrela Toona) and the red sanders (Pterocarpus santalinus), the particular species utilised depending upon its distribution in the country.

As has been previously shown in this history, a trade existed for some species long before the advent of the Forest Department, but with the exception of teak, blackwood and sandalwood it was almost a purely local one.

The increase in population, trade and wealth which followed the peaceful orderliness of British rule resulted in a large demand for timber, and this was again greatly increased by the requirements of the public services and the railways. We have seen that in the early days of our occupation many forests were cut out and ruined, or disappeared entirely. Then followed the period of leasing forests and allowing them to be worked by private enterprise, a plan which failed both in Madras, Burma and the Central Provinces in the case of teak, in the accessible sâl forests of the North-Western Provinces and in the Himalayan forests with deodar. Areas of forest of enormous value were cut out by timber traders, who cared nothing for the future of the forest, whilst the Government did not receive an adequate value for the produce extracted. Instances of this nature had been plentiful in the history of many forests in Europe, but India failed to profit by these examples, and for many years Government authorities pinned their faith to the ruinous method of leasing out forests to capitalists in the vain hope that the latter would so work the areas as to ensure a future crop of young trees taking the place of the mature, and often immature, ones felled. The hope proved as elusive in India as it has elsewhere in the world. The method meant, and will always mean, reckless waste and inevitable ruin.

The establishment of the Forest Department gradually brought this wasteful system of exploitation to an end. As has been shown (I, p. 383), in spite of the strongest opposition from Brandis it persisted in Lower Burma longer than elsewhere, but it was brought to an abrupt termination in all save a few unimportant areas in Tenasserim in 1873, when the leases were cancelled owing to serious malpractices on the part of the lessees or their sub-contractors. After the conquest of Upper Burma (vide p. 453) very extensive forests came into the possession of the British Government. These under King

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