fruits, others grateful for their shade, and some yielding fodder for elephants and camels. In the neighbourhood of every village also may be seen tracts of jungle, more or less extensive, which by some are accounted so much waste land. They are often composed of long grass or low shrubs, as the Dhák and wild Jujube, with a few trees intermixed as the babul and siris. These tracts, though disfiguring the rich appearance of a cultivated country, are far from useless, as they form the only pastures which the natives possess for their cattle, as well as their whole source of supply of firewood and whatever timber may be required for the building of their huts or the making of their agricultural implements.

"

From the number and extent of the forests and jungles of India, it might be inferred that timber was abundant in all parts, not only for home consumption but that a supply might be obtained for foreign commerce: this is far from being the case. Though forest lands are extensive, their contents in accessible situations are not of a nature or sufficiently abundant to supply even the ordinary demands. In India, as in other long-inhabited and early civilised countries, the parts best adapted for agricultural purposes have long been cleared of jungle. The forests lying nearest to the inhabited tracts were first stripped of their timber, and as no precautions have been taken to replace the old trees a gradual diminution has been observed in the supply of timber, which has consequently increased in price (as may be seen in the Government contracts for building and the commissariat outlay for firewood) not solely from actual deficiency, but because timber is only obtainable from less accessible situations, with considerable increase of labour and expense.

"As the principal cities where the greatest demand for timber exists are in the centre of cultivated tracts, so are they necessarily remote from the forests from which they require wood, either for the construction of houses and materials for shipbuilding or other purposes. Hence a commerce in timber has long been established in India. Calcutta and the cities situated on the Ganges are supplied with timber grown in the forests which skirt the foot of the Himalayan Mountains, from Assam to the banks of the Jumna. These supplies are floated on rafts down the numerous feeders of the Ganges, which forms the great artery of the plains of India. But this is not sufficient for the consumption of Calcutta, as considerable quantities are imported from the Burman Empire. In the same

way there is an insufficient supply for the Madras Presidency, which is made up by importing timber from Ceylon.”

"Looking to the extent of India, and reading of interminable jungles, it may seem a work of supererogation to talk of the deficiency of timber or of the necessity of protecting its forests. Timber to be valuable must be of the proper kind, of the proper age, and at proper distances, that is, in accessible situations. As might have been expected, from continual drains being made on these forests, without adequate measures having been adopted to keep up the supply, a continued and increasing deficiency has been experienced in all parts of India, which has frequently attracted the attention of the Indian and Home Governments, so that in the Bombay Presidency numerous reports have been made on the state of the teak forests, and measures adopted for their improvement, without as yet much benefit."

The following is the summary of the conclusions of the Committee who drew up the British Association's Report of 1851

“(1) That over large portions of the Indian Empire there is at present an almost uncontrolled destruction of the indigenous forests in progress, from the careless habits of the native population.

"(2) That in Malabar, Tenasserim and Sind, where supervision is exercised, considerable improvement has already taken place.

"(3) That these improvements may be extended by a rigid enforcement of the forest regulations and the enactment of additional provisions of the following character, viz. careful maintenance of the forests by the plantation of seedlings in place of mature trees removed, nurseries being established in the immediate neighbourhood and prohibition of cutting until trees are well grown with rare and special exceptions for peculiar purposes. In cases of trees yielding gums, resins, or other valuable products, that greater care be taken in tapping or notching the trees, most serious danger at present resulting from neglect in this operation.

(4) That especial attention should be given to the preservation and maintenance of the forests occupying tracts unsuited for culture, whether by reason of altitude or peculiarities of physical structure.

"(5) That in a country to which the maintenance of its water supplies is of such extreme importance, the indiscriminate clearance of forests around the localities whence these supplies are derived is greatly to be deprecated.

"(6) That as much local ignorance prevails as to the number and nature of valuable forest products, measures should be taken to supply, through the officers in charge, information calculated to diminish such ignorance.

'(7) That, as much information which may be of practical utility is contained in the Manuscript Reports and Proceedings of the late Plantation Committee,' amounting to over 1070 pages of MSS., it is desirable that the same should, if practicable, be abstracted and given to the public." The Plantation Committee originated under the administration of the Marquis of Hastings, but the above recommendation was unfortunately never given effect to.

The above forms a good summary of the position of the Forestry question at the period here dealt with.

CHAPTER XII

THE INITIAL START IN FOREST CONSERVANCY IN THE MADRAS AND BOMBAY, 1850-1857

I

T has been shown that Bombay took the first step in appointing an administrative Conservator of Forests, that is a Conservator who should not be merely a commercial timber exploiter, but whose chief duties should be in connection with the superintendence and amelioration of the forests themselves. In 1847 Dr. Gibson had been appointed to this post, a post he had informally filled for several years previously as Interim Conservator, in addition to his own appointment as Superintendent of the Botanical Gardens.

We have also seen that the Madras Government took advantage of the existence of the Bombay Conservatorship to obtain advice from Gibson with the object of straightening out some of the tangle into which their own forest administration had become involved during the past half century.

Gibson's appointment in Bombay and the work he accomplished there was not without its effect on the Madras Government, and in 1856 they took a similar step and appointed Dr. Cleghorn as Conservator in that Presidency.

The work of the period under review was essentially of a transitory nature. The system of working the forests was gradually passing over from the hand-to-mouth policy pursued during half a century. This policy had as its primary objects the satisfying, or attempt to satisfy, the complaints and demands of the lessees of the forests and those whose claims to private ownership had been assumed without enquiry to be legally sound. These persons, owing to the mistaken policy introduced in the early days for securing the requirements of timber by Government departments, had been allowed to obtain a definite hold over large areas of forest. The secondary object was to assure to Government the provision of its full timber demands for the dockyards, gun-carriage factories,

public works and so forth. The new ideas, which had come to be seen as essential, were concerned with the correct management of the forests not solely with a view to assuring future timber supplies. It was slowly being realised that unrestricted Kumri cultivation was harmful, alike in the great waste of timber thereby engendered and also, in many parts, to the direct interests of the ryots owing to the ensuing decrease in the water supplies and to resultant erosion covering up valuable fertile lands. The same effects resulted from the areas cleared for coffee plantations, though this latter question scarcely advanced beyond an academic discussion during the period. What had been grasped by now was the great decrease in accessible timber forests; the fact that vast areas of fine forests had been cleared off in the neighbourhood of the floatable streams; and that the destruction of the remaining accessible forest was being hastened by the commencement made in railway construction, although this new method of communication had not made very great progress during the period.

The Conservators drew up some very valuable and instructive reports as a result of personal investigations carried out during tours made throughout the charges to which they had been appointed. These to a great extent recapitulated matters which have been already dealt with in previous chapters. But a certain amount of interesting material regarding the first beginnings of regular conservancy merits notice.

Bombay Presidency. Gibson's work in Bombay was of a varied character. He undertook several tours through the forests in parts of the Presidency and drew up some valuable reports on these tours. He paid particular attention to the destruction caused to the forests by the Kumri or shifting cultivation, and pointed out the evil effects resulting from this primitive form of agriculture both in the drying up of springs and streams and in the silting up of rivers and creeks, thereby destroying natural harbours which had existed in the lower parts of these rivers and on the coast.

It was due to Gibson's untiring crusade against the Kumri cultivation that by the end of the period under review it had come to be greatly restricted in the Bombay Presidency. In a Memorandum dated 23rd May, 1860, written by Mr. J. D. Bourdillon, Secretary to the Government of Madras, on a Report on this subject by Cleghorn, the Secretary notes that