664 JO URNAL, BOMB A Y NA TUBAL HISTOR Y SOCIETY, Vol. XII. 



It was not until the increasing difl&culty of meeting demands for 

 public works indicated the existence of a timber-famine, that the Indian 

 Government realized the gravity of the situation. According to 

 Dr. Schlich, the remedial measures at first adopted were only " half- 

 hearted." But when their insufficiency was made clear, a special 

 State Department was organized. The efforts which preceded that 

 event were not, however, unimportant or without effect on subsequent 

 arrangements. Indian Botanists had long urged on the Government 

 the necessity for establishing a regular system of forest administra- 

 tion and preventing the continued destruction of public property of 

 enormous value. The dawning of a new era was marked by the 

 appointment, in 1847, of the late Dr. Gibson to bo Conservator of 

 Forests in the Bombay Presidency. The most important duty assigned 

 to him was the maintenance of the supply of teak for ship building to 

 the Government Dockyard in Bombay ; and his work as a pioneer of 

 practical forestry was of special value in Western India, where he was 

 familiarly known as *' Daddy Gibson" and is still remembered, with 

 affection, by the people of the Junar district above the Ghats, where he 

 had his head quarters. As early as in 1847, the well known name of 

 the late Dr. Hugh Cleghorn, who has been described as the father of 

 the scientific forestry in India, appears in a report on the proposed 

 conservation of forests in Mysore. In the following year, General 

 Michael, C.S.T., who was then Lieut. Michael of the 39th Madras 

 Infantry, and has been described by Sir Joseph Fayrer as the father 

 and pioneer of practical forestry in India, was entrusted by the 

 Government of Madras with the organization of an establishment 

 for working and conserving the public forests near Coimbatore and 

 Cochin. He opened out forest roads and timber slips down the 

 mountain passes and cleared belts of brushwood to preserve young 

 saplings from fire. In the Anamalai teak forests, he made " the first 

 recorded attempt to protect Indian Forests from injury by annual 

 jungle fires." (Lt.-Col. Bailey on " Forestry in India." The Scottish 

 Geographical Magazine for 1897, p. 576.) Also by giving employment 

 to the Hill tribes he secured their co-operation in his plans. In the 

 discussion on the paper on Forestry read by General Michael before 

 the Society of Arts in December, 1894, Sir George Birdwood referred 

 to certain attempts in the same direction made about the same time in 



