vice-pebsident's address. 183 



right to the forests of Pegu, placed the present Sir Dietrich 

 Brandis, K.C.S.I., at their head in 1854. From that time a 

 system of scientific and practical forestry has been applied 

 gradually to all India, under that distinguished savant, who 

 lately lectured in the University of Edinburgh, where his old 

 colleague, Colonel Bailey, late R.E., now represents the subject. 

 Dr Schlich, and then Mr Ribbentrop, succeeded Brandis as 

 Inspector-General of Forests. The last, who is about to retire 

 after thirty -three years' service, "sums up the remarkable results 

 of the forty-five years' administration of the system introduced 

 by the Marquis of Dalhousie. The Government of India received 

 a gross revenue of 190 lakhs of rupees last year from the forests, 

 and of this, 79 lakhs, or upwards of half a million in gold, 

 was clear gain. Brandis began his work without one expert 

 as assistant. Now the trained Forest establishment is 308 

 strong, recruited by competition in this country and from 

 skilled natives in India itself. The second Lord Elgin corrected 

 the one mistake of the department, which carried out too 

 stringently the rules for minor produce. Now the forest 

 pastures and brushwood are thrown open to the people to 

 preserve their cattle in time of famine, and the old jealous}' 

 between the district and the forest officers has ceased. The 

 survey has covered 24,000 square miles of forests. "Working 

 plans have been made for 20,000 square miles, and no fewer 

 than 32,000 square miles are under special protection from 

 forest fires. Of late sylviculture has advanced side by side 

 with arboriculture, and new varieties of merchantable wood 

 have flourished. The physical effects of the extending forests 

 on the climate cannot be financially estimated, but these are 

 none the less real and beneficial. The Scotsman who did most 

 for Indian, and thereafter for Scottish forestry, was the late 

 Dr Cleghorn of Stravithie, Fifeshire." 



I think that this article is an additional argument why the 

 British Government should take in hand a National System of 

 Forestry. The crown lands in England are the New Forest 

 in Hampshire, and the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. The 

 former the Society visited seven years ago. It contains 100 

 square miles of land suitable for the growing of timber, and 

 yet it remains comparatively useless. I consider this mis- 

 management of the New Forest a great blot upon the arbori- 

 cultural knowledge of the empire. The Forest of Dean, visited 



