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Y, NOTES, QUERIES

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EXTRACTS.

EARLY HISTORY OF FORESTRY IN INDIA.-If the Fates are propitious, General Michael may yet do more towards a history of the early days of forest cultivation in India than is comprised in his recent much-too-brief letter to the Secretary of State. Such a history of those beginnings of things would be full of interest, not only to those who have in these latter days watched with keen attention the development of our great forestry organization, but to every student of the Empire's progress under the British Raj. It would be hard to say exactly what measure of the civilization and prosperity of the country is to be credited to the Forest Department. A mere glance at the formidable arrays of figures which comprise the bulk of the periodical reports on the subject reveals nothing, or next to nothing, while that curious (but hardy) annual, the "Moral and Material Progress Report," is content to dismiss the subject in a paragraph which does not even possess the merit of accuracy, inasmuch as it dates back the beginning of forest operations only to 1844, whereas they were commenced in Bombay as early as 1807, when Buonaparte was yet on the flood tide, when Russia was declaring war against England, when the nation was still mourning Nelson, and when his illustrious brother-warrior, Arthur Wellesley, after sweeping triumphantly through India, was earning new laurels nearer home. All that we know from the official returns is that there are now something over 60,000 square miles of forest reserves, and that the gross revenue arising from them is something like Rs. 1,34,90,470, or a net annual surplus of about Rs. 55,70,470. The remainder of our knowledge may be summed up in the statement of the Progress Report, that within the last twenty years forest laws have been enacted for, and forest administration has been placed upon a permanent basis in, every province of India ; that the superior officers of the forest service have been selected by competition and have been trained in forestry either in Germany or in France, or at Cooper's Hill College, some of the subordinate officials being trained at a Forest school near Dehra in the sub-Himalayan country of the North-Western Provinces; and that, briefly speaking, the system is to select, acquire, and mark off as reserve

an area of State forest in every province sufficient to supply the wants of the neighbourhood and the province in respect of timber, firewood, bamboos, canes, and other forest produce, and sufficient also for supplying the foreign demand for such articles as teaktimber, sandal-wood, and rubber, these reserves being surveyed, conserved, and worked on sanctioned plans designed so as to obtain the largest possible permanent yield in the most ecomonical way, and private rights in the reserves being bought out or compromised. We know that in every province a very few of the most valuable timber trees are declared to be reserved trees, and can only be felled under special license outside the reserves, the country folk being allowed to obtain from the State forests timber, bamboos firewood, and grass for their own use free of charge, and inside reserves only persons specially licensed being allowed to extract timber or other produce on payment of fees; and we also know that forest revenue is raised by royalties on or by the sale of timber or other produce, and by issuing at specified fees permits to graze cattle, or to extract for sale timber, firewood, charcoal, bamboos, canes, and other minor forest produce. What General Michael has to tell us is the story of how this great organization had its beginning and in what difficult circumstances the work was begun. and carried on or abandoned, as the case might be, and how out of many attempts in widely separated districts there grew at length under the eventual fostering care of Sir D. Brandis the organization we now know as the Imperial Forest Department. It was in 1807, as we have already said, that the earliest efforts were made. in the direction of forest conservation, and these efforts were made in Bombay where the ship-building interest created a large demand for timber. In this year the Government issued a Proclamation assuming forest rights, appointed Commissioners to fix boundaries, and began a conservancy scheme on (for those times) a fairly extensive scale. There were many difficulties in the way, however. Private rights, it was alleged, were being encroached upon, and the efforts of the Conservators met with considerable opposition, and at length, fifteen years later, the scheme was practically abandoned. In Canara, as in some other districts, of which the record has been lost in one of the India Office holocausts, other schemes were in active force, and Colonel Gilbert was Conservator there for some sixteen years, being succeeded by Captain Jackes, of the Indian Navy, who was withdrawn when the district establishment was broken up in 1823-24. After a year or two's quiescence another experiment was made, and after that still others, but it was practically not until 1810 that any vigorous attempt was made to deal

with the subject. In that year the late Dr. Alexander Gibson, then Superintendent of the Bombay Botanical Gardens, was deputed to report upon the forest tracts of the Northern Division of the Presidency, and was subsequently appointed Conservator of Forests. Dr. Gibson worked under the Military Board, and an extraordinarily comprehensive system was formulated—much too comprehensive, as it afterwards proved, to give any satisfaction to the people generally, for complaints were again rife as to interfering with the ancient rights of the community. The attempts at taxation were strenuously resisted, the collection of timber, firewood, and jungle produce, was vigorously opposed, and Dr. Gibson and his officers often found themselves in an unpleasantly perilous position. Apart from all this, the operations did not pay; and in 1851 the Board recommended that the operations be restricted, and nine years later we find Dr. Gibson's appointment vacant. He had done very excellent work, however, and undoubtedly sowed the seeds of all our later operations. One of his efforts towards establishing conservancy, General Michael tells us, was the introduction of a measure under which heads of villages and landholders were entrusted with the preservation and working of forest tracts, receiving a small share of any profit derived from them. Both he and Dr. Stocks (who acted for him part of the time) were earnest and persistent in their advocacy of economy in forest matters and the preservation of their resources, says General Michael, and although their measures "savoured too much of a timber trade and a wholesale confiscation of ancient rights and customs, they rendered most valuable service to the cause of conservancy, which was then beginning to attract the serious attention of the Court of Directors."

Prior to acting for Dr. Gibson, Dr. Stocks had been Conservator in Sind, where a " Forest Ranger," as the office was then called, had been appointed in 1847. This was Major Scott, who was succeeded in turn by Captain Crawford, Dr. Stocks, Captain Hamilton of the Indian Navy, and Mr. Dalzell. The duties of the Ranger were to raise revenue from grazing fees, firewood, and jungle produce, and the sale of such building material as was procurable, and to ensure a supply of fuel for the Indus flotilla. The forests, however, contained little excepting babool (Acacia arabica), bahn (Populus euphratica) and "tamarisk" (Tamarix orientalis). is scanty," wrote the Ranger, in reporting to the Board, "brush being the rule, and wood the exception;" and here again the establishment did not pay, and Dr. Gibson, reporting on it in 1851, observed that though the forests defrayed the expenses of the native

management, the salaries of the European officers remained a charge to the State. Excellent work, however, was done by the officers named, and the measures they took to prevent waste, and the views they enunciated on the subject of conservancy and reproduction, were, the Records tell us, most useful to the cause. It was in this same year (1847) that General John Jacob began planting operations in the arid districts of the Upper Sind frontier, his main objects being to create shade and improve the rainfall and climateobjects which Sir Henry Green tells us he attained in a very marked degree. In the Tenasserim Provinces forest protection dates back to 1827. In that year Dr. Wallich reported on the teak forests, and proposed that the Government should take steps to preserve them. Six years were occupied in discussing the proposition, framing rules, and estimating consequences, and at length in 1833 a small native establishment was formed under the control of the civil authorities. Here as elsewhere, however, the old bogey of "ancient rights" cropped up, and the rules became a dead-letter. In 1837, 1838, and 1842 attempts were made at new rules, most of which were approved by the Government of India, but disapproved by the Court of Directors. In 1847 again Mr. J. R. Colvin, then Commissioner, endeavoured to form a forest department; but this also appears to have fallen through, for, when the Madras Government sent General Michael to the district in 1851 there was neither officer nor establishment. It was not till 1853 that a fair start was made, and after that things went on, comparatively speaking, uninterruptedly. In the Madras Presidency a scarcity of timber, owing to the large demands for the construction of the Bombay Dockyard and the ruinous methods by which the forests were worked by the lessees, provoked an experimental plantation at Nilambur, in Malabar. The work of Mr. H. V. Conolly, who began the experiment, was so much appreciated by the Government that it was gradually extended, until to-day there is a magnificent artificial forest in the district. Towards preserving natural forests, however, very little was done till 1847-48, when General Michael was appointed to take charge of the Annamullay forests in the Coimbatore district, and in course of time the work was extended on all hands. Not being hampered to any large extent by communal rights, the work was eminently successful, and it received additional impetus when in 1851 the British Association drew attention in England to the urgent need which existed for extending such work throughout India. It was the Madras Government in these early days which was the first to enunciate the principle that the conservancy of forest resources was the primary, and the

acquisition of revenue but a secondary, consideration in forest work; and it is in pursuance of this principle that the work has shown such excellent results. In 1855 General Michael retired owing to ill-health, and was succeeded by General (then Captain) Douglas Hamilton. In 1856 Dr. Hugh Cleghorn was appointed Conservator of Forests, with Captain Hamilton, Lieut. Beddome, and Dr. Drew as his assistants, with a suitable subordinate establishment, the whole costing no more than Rs. 5,000 per mensem. This was the real beginning of the Imperial Forest Department, although it did not actually take that form till 1862-64. Forest work then became general, and has gone on progressing, till it has reached the important place in the Imperial Government which it enjoys to-day.-Times of India.

OIL-YIELDING TREES OF BURMA.-The publication of a revised form of license for the collection of wood-oil on lands at the disposal of Government not included in a reserved or village forest in the last issue of the Official Gazette reminds us of another and valuable source of natural wealth in the province, which might very well engage the attention of the capitalist seeking for some profitable investment in Burma.

Wood-oil or resin, the yield of a number of splendid members of the vegetable kingdom, may be obtained in most parts of the province at very little cost of time and labour. Some of the trees yielding it are so widely spread that they may be met with in most forests from the frontier towards Chittagong and Tipperah down to Tenasserim. They may also be met with in the various islands of the coast; and many of the kinds, which yield the kanyin, possess stems of fine girth, shooting up above the soil to a towering height without a branch to mar their straight outline. Magnificent specimens of a clear stem 15 feet in girth and over 100 feet in height are not uncommon in the tropical forests of Pegu, Tenasserim, and the Andaman Islands, and these are species of that natural genus so common in Burma-the Dipterocarpusthe two-winged fruit of which whirl about in the atmosphere previous to finding a genial abode in the virgin soil of the forest. Of kanyin the Burmese distinguish two varieties-the red and the white--and both, besides yielding oil, supply a kind of timber which lasts very well, and is used for planks in such parts of buildings as are not exposed to wet. The timber, however, is not so valuable as the oil, extracted generally by tapping, and is much inferior to teak, unlike which it is exposed to the attacks of