end of the season, 1353 planks had reached the top of the slip. The planks, etc., of the previous working season had been already carted to Mungara in time for the October freshets, but these latter failed completely, thus delaying the work. Eight hundred and fifty-three planks reached Ponany, and were passed as mostly 1st and 2nd class timber, being pronounced by Mr. Poulten as timber of a very superior description. These planks at the old market prices would have cost Government about Rs.30,000, or Rs.3000 more than the total expenditure of working the forests during the season 1853-4, and including the cost of the Marchenaikenpolliam bridge on the road to Vangul. This latter road proved as great a benefit to the country-side as did that to Mungara.

The Report for 1854 is the last of the records of the period on this departmental working. In the four years Michael had to face the misfortunes and vicissitudes so common in India, opposition from the merchants, incendiarism and conservatism, floods in the rivers and then drought, preventing the floating operations, and disease in the form of cholera. These experiences delayed his timber from reaching the seacoast and the Government Timber Agent. But the Anaimalai work was a fine commencement at organised working, and furnished proof that departmental working was a possibility, and that it resulted in lowering prices. It also provided evidence of the benefit it carried to the country-side, both in the improvement of lines of communication and in the certainty that the local people employed in the forests would be properly paid for their labour and not defrauded of their just dues, as was so prevalent in those days. For these reasons it has been placed on record here.

As has been recorded. Michael was formally appointed Superintendent of the Anaimalai Forest in 1854, and he started a system of clearing teak seedlings, and young teak trees from dry leaves and other inflammable matter in the forests, so as to protect them against injury from the annual fires of the dry season.

In 1856 Michael went on leave, and Captain (later General) Douglas Hamilton was appointed in his place. He was in charge of the Anaimalai Forests for several years, and at a later date-after a regular Forest Department for the whole Presidency had been organised-Hamilton was succeeded by Lieutenant (later Colonel) Beddome.

Michael, Hamilton and Beddome were all names which were

to become famous in the early annals of the Forestry Department in India.

In August, 1856, Cleghorn submitted a report to the Government of Madras, containing proposals for establishing Forest Conservancy. These proposals were sent up to the Government of India for sanction, which was accorded in November.

On the 19th December, 1856, Cleghorn was appointed Conservator of Forests in the Presidency of Madras. He spent the following year in touring through and examining the forests.

BURMA

CHAPTER XIII

FOREST OPERATIONS IN BURMA (TENASSERIM), 1850-1857

AR

DR. FALCONER'S REPORT

S has been shown, Mr. Colvin, Commissioner of Tenasserim, organised, after Captain Latter's resignation in 1847, what amounted to a small Forest Department, one of the Commissioner's Assistants being placed in charge, and made proposals to Government on the subject of granting perpetual leases of the forests to timber contractors on certain conditions. The most important of these were that the latter should undertake to replant teak on the areas from which they cut the mature trees, and that they should be prohibited from felling young trees. The proviso that the areas felled should be replanted with from three to five young teak for every one removed, had, indeed, formed a condition of the old leases, but it had never been carried out. Grave fears were, therefore, entertained that, with such staff as it was considered financially possible to maintain to superintend the forests, it would be impossible to ensure that licence-holders would carry out in the future a condition which had been so flagrantly disregarded in the past. To solve this question Dr. Falconer, of the Calcutta Botanical Gardens, was deputed in 1849 to visit and report on the Tenasserim Forests, with especial regard to the amount of teak timber they still contained, the abundance or otherwise of young teak growth, the probability of the licence-holders replanting their areas and the possibility of forming plantations, or otherwise securing adequate supplies of young teak on the areas, to ensure the conservation of the forests.

Falconer submitted his Report in January, 1851.

After describing the two species of teak in Burma (Tectona grandis and T. Hamiltoni), of which the former is the chief timber species, and briefly alluding to the geographical features