named as founders of the present Department and scores of our best sylviculturists, amenagists and administrators generally—such as (I may be permitted to cite a few amongst many who, I am happy to say, exist) Hill, Eardley Wilmot, Popert, Oliver, Carter, Fernandez, Bagshawe, Wroughton, Beadon, Bryant, etc. etc.—can raise no claim to be botanists in a wider sense than to be able to utilise the knowledge of professional botanists which must always be the foundation of much of our work. Nevertheless, the study of botany and other sciences auxiliary to forestry is fully encouraged in the Indian Forest Department, sometimes even at an administrative sacrifice, and we have men, such as Messrs. Talbot, Lace, McDonell and Stebbing, for instance, who neglect neither the one nor the other.”

Of research work in its accepted sense in other branches of forestry (sylviculture and botany have been already alluded to) little was done by the Department itself. Allusion must, however, be made to two directions in which work of this nature was being carried on.

In November, 1879, Dr. Warth was appointed as an Assistant Conservator on the School Staff, and remained on the Staff till 1889, when he went on leave and did not return. He was apparently Instructor in physical science and had a small chemical laboratory for research work. There does not appear to be much on record as to the work he was engaged upon. One reference, however, is to be found in the pages of the Indian Forester (Vol. VII, p. 188, 1881). It refers to a Report written by Dr. Warth on the utilisation of the less valuable woods of the forests, for which no ready sale existed, in the manufacture of charcoal for iron smelting. The result of Warth's investigations was unfavourable, for he concluded his Report by saying, "To give a reasonable hope of success there must be a permanent supply of cheap charcoal, good ore and lime in plenty on the spot, as well as ample and willing labour, and the locality selected should not be too near the seaports, whence English iron comes, nor should it be far from a considerable market." The reviewer of the Report says it would be wonderful if a locality uniting all these conditions could be found, and therefore feared that the idea would have to be given up. Yet he realises the soundness of the idea, for he adds: "This is a pity, for the idea is evidently a good one, and any manufacture which would utilise the class of trees referred to would be of great assistance in the amelioration

of the stock of timber in our forests." He also remarks that it would not be easy to induce the native to use the inferior species of trees for charcoal making, instancing the native iron smelters in Chota Nagpur who always utilised sâl for charcoal making.

This is probably the first instance of a piece of economic forest research work having been carried out in India. It is also interesting to observe that even at this comparatively early date in the life of the Department the importance of removing and utilising the inferior species with the direct object of sylviculturally improving the forest crop had become fully recognised.

Subsequently Dr. Walter Leather was appointed Agricultural Chemist to the Government of India with head-quarters at Dehra, and gave instructions in physical science to the Forest School Students. It is not apparent, however, that he conducted any research work for the Department during the period.

The appointment of a Reporter on Economic Products to the Government of India was created in 1887, and Dr. (now Sir George) Watt, C.I.E., was gazetted to the post. His duties were to institute enquiries into the economic products of the country with the object of discovering new products of commercial or medicinal value. Memoranda were drawn up on the products and issued from time to time. The great result of Watt's work was the publication by the Government of India of the Dictionary of Economic Products, upon which work he was already engaged at the time of his appointment. The Reporter was authorised to communicate direct with Conservators of Forests in order that the economic products of the forests might be included in his researches and find a place in the dictionary. The officers of the Department co-operated indefatigably with Dr. Watt, and a very considerable amount of valuable information upon forest products had been collected by the end of the century-researches which were to become very valuable and to form a foundation upon which to build when the Forest Research Institute came into being in the early years of the twentieth century, as will be described in the succeeding volume.

The other branch of research work which received some meed of recognition during the period here under review was that of forest entomology. The possibility of making a commencement in this direction eventuated with the appoint

ment, in 1884, of Mr. E. C. Cotes to the charge of the Entomo logical Section of the Indian Museum at Calcutta. Mr. Cotes took up the rearrangement, identification and cataloguing of the insect collections in the museum, in which work he was assisted by Mr. L. de Niceville, Colonel Charles Swinhoe and many others, including British and foreign scientists in Europe and America. In 1888 Cotes undertook, at the suggestion of Sir Edward Buck, an investigation on the subject of the attacks of the wheat and rice weevil of India. The results attained were published; but as an outcome it was realised that some further organisation would be required to cope with so large an investigation as that of the insects attacking crops in India. On the suggestion of Sir Edward Buck the matter was taken up by the Trustees of the Indian Museum, and it was ultimately decided to make the investigation of the economic entomology of India a regular feature of the work of the Entomological Section of the Museum, the results to be published as materials accumulated in the form of a periodical to be entitled Indian Museum Notes, which would be issued by the Trustees under the authority of the Government of India. Funds for the purpose were furnished by the Government of India to provide for a small staff, for the publication of the Notes, and incidental purposes. This departure met with instant response on the part of all the Directors of Land Records and Agriculture in the different provinces, and the co-operation of all officials and others interested in agriculture throughout India was invited. a result a stream of Reports, accompanied by specimens, began to arrive at the Museum. Since a knowledge of how to collect and pack insect pests, and how to carry out observations was necessarily absent for the most part, much of the information sent in was of a fragmentary character (as often, on arrival, were the specimens and insects sent). In spite of this, a great deal of valuable information was compiled and issued in the four volumes, each of several parts, published between 1889 and the close of the century.

At the request of the Inspector-General the new departure was extended to the Forest Department, Mr. Cotes undertaking to obtain the identification of specimens forwarded to him by officers of the Department, and to furnish such information with reference to the pests as might prove possible. At this date there was a complete absence of all knowledge on the subject of the insect pests of the Indian forests. The

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first practical beginnings of research work into forest insects commenced with Mr. Cotes, assisted by Forest Officers.

By the end of the century a number of Memoranda, on forest insect pests, mostly of a brief nature, had been published in the Notes scattered throughout the four volumes. In some cases they referred to the few Reports on insect attacks which had previously appeared in the pages of the Indian Forester.

It had become evident to Ribbentrop, the Inspector-General, that if progress was to be made into the great field of investigation into forest insect pests, the Department would have to take up the work itself. This is apparent from the following extract from Forestry in British India:

"It must be acknowledged that the Indian Forest Department has contributed a large share to the development of an English forest literature, but as yet we have no comprehensive books, either on insects injurious to forest growth, or diseases of forest plants. These wants are most important. We have had already indications that insects may do widespread damage to our Indian forests, and as, under our present management, the intermixture of our most valuable trees becomes more and more pronounced, and in many instances will lead us to the establishment of large areas of more or less pure forests, this danger from insects may, and probably will, become more intense in the future. For this we should become fully prepared and armed. During the last year, for the first time, Mr. Stebbing, a Forest Officer in Bengal, compiled a manual of all that had so far been published as regards injurious insects. This I circulated amongst Forest Officers, with an appeal for assistance in collecting specimens and data for the life-history of the various injurious insects. The result has so far been very gratifying, and with the necessary assistance it is hoped that the foundation will soon be laid of a practical and valuable work. The importance of this science to Indian forestry has never been entirely recognised at its full value, and it is only of late that more concentrated and widespread attention has been paid to the life-history of our injurious insects. I took the opportunity of Mr. Stebbing's knowledge and taste in this respect of starting the organisation of Departmental Researches."

The reference here made by Ribbentrop was to his suggestion to the Government of India that a research post of Forest

Entomologist should be created, the occupant, a Forest Officer, to be under the orders of the Inspector-General. He was to be relieved of all executive forest duties, and to give his whole time to a study of the insect pests of the forests. This proposal found warm support from Mr. T. W. Holderness (now Sir Thomas Holderness, Bart., G.C.B.), at the time Revenue Secretary to the Government of India, and was sanctioned by the GovernorGeneral in Council and the Secretary of State. The author was appointed to this post at the close of the period here reviewed. It was the foundation-stone on which a great edifice was to arise in the course of the next two decades.

The writer would offer an apology for having to refer to himself in this history. It appeared unavoidable, however, if the credit of initiating the first forest research post held by a Forest Officer in India was to be allocated to the originator of the idea, Ribbentrop. Moreover, there were three senior Forest Officers in the Department at the time, Colonel C. T. Bingham and Messrs. Wroughton, subsequently InspectorGeneral for a short period, and T. R. D. Bell, who had been engaged on entomological collection work of value for a considerable period, and whose work was well known, both at the Indian Museum and the Natural History Museum in London. The Department would wish to place on record the great assistance in Forestry Botanical Research which has always been accorded to it by the Officers of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Calcutta and Kew. During the period dealt with in this volume the work performed was of the greatest value to the progress of forest conservancy.