36 IXDIAX FOREST INSECTS 



considered an absurdity. The work of the past half-cent luy has, however, 

 entirely changed the position of affairs and the condition and appearance 

 of many of the forests. What formerly had all the appearance of being 

 worthless waste lands have now become well-ordered estates of considerable 

 and increasing value. What were once disorganized, almost disforested (so 

 far as valuable timber went) areas are now being brought under fine 

 normal crops of valuable timber of an almost incalculable value to the well- 

 being of the country at large. 



The time, therefore, when the officers of the department could afford 

 to regard with tranquillity the possibility of insect invasion as a danger not 

 of their time or day is past. In the well-ordered management of the forests 

 which has now taken the place of the chaos which formerly reigned, in the 

 yearly increasing density of the crops per acre compared with what formerly 

 stood there under the conditions pertaining to primeval forests and in the 

 period which followed when many of the forests had been cut out, in 

 the careful fire-protection instituted over large areas throughout the country, 

 and finally with the vagaries of the Indian climate ever holding the countrv 

 at their mercy and leading to unprecedented increases in the numbers of 

 a pest at a few short weeks' or months' notice in the event of the occur- 

 rence of an unusually dry season or series of dry seasons — in all these 

 influences we see the scale turned against the forest and in favour of 

 the insect, and it cannot therefore be too strongly emphasized that the 

 day of immunity from insect attacks on a large scale in the forests of 

 India is rapidly drawing to a close. 



What is the experience of the world ? 



The European forest management, that of Germany and France, has 

 been held up to the Indian Forest Service as the ideal to aim at. But 

 neither in Germany nor France have they been able, to reduce the science 

 of forestry to such a degree of exactitude as to prevent serious plagues of 

 insects from devastating the forests. And this with a sound knowledge 

 of forestry science, and a plethora of specialists at their back. They know 

 how to combat a serious attack in Germany and France ; they know how to 

 recognize it in its earliest phases', and so how to reduce its effects and 

 the resultant monetary loss to a minimum. But they cannot foretell an 

 attack before it has actually begun, or is about to commence, any more 

 than they can stop it taking place. 



America, again, has suffered serious losses from insect infestations, and 

 these have been experienced in the past as a direct outcome of hopeless 

 mismanagement of the forests and wanton destruction by fire and axe. 



But, as we have seen, well-ordered forests are equall\' liable to such 

 invasions. Wherever there is a proper conservancy, and the nearer this 

 conservancy approaches to a maximum of efficiency and intensity of 

 management, the danger of insect iinasion is inevitably enhanced. 



An msect attack may commence after a bad fire on an area, or as a 

 result of severe snow-break, or windfalls after severe storms. 



