THE INDIAN FOREST SCHOOL. 155 
VIIL The Indian Forest School. By Major F, Battey, R.E., 
F.R.G.S., Director of the Forest School, Dehra Din, N.W.P., 
India. * 
It is only within the last twenty-five years or so that a special 
State Department has been in existence for the management of 
the Indian forests. Mr Brandis, who has lately retired from the 
office of Inspector-General of Forests, was mainly instrumental in 
organising the new institution, and he remained at the head of it 
until 1883. The superior staff was at first composed of selected 
civil or military officers who were thought to possess a natural 
aptitude for the work, but they had not received a professional 
education such as is given on the continent of Europe to officers 
charged with the management of State forests. At first, when 
the duties of the new department consisted mainly in acquiring 
control over the principal wooded areas in the country, and 
in preventing the unauthorised felling of trees upon them, a 
staff thus organised was all that was required, and Mr Brandis 
has repeatedly testified to the great value of the work accomplished 
by his subordinates in those early days. But the natural result 
of this work was, that the State became responsible for the efficient 
management of very extensive areas of forest land, which pos- 
sessed great prospective value, and from which it was necessary 
to secure a permanent supply of timber and other produce to 
meet local demands both public and private. This could only be 
accomplished by introducing a regular system of management, 
which would prevent the removal from the forests of more timber 
than their growth could replace, and which would secure their 
regeneration either naturally or by artificial means, such as plant- 
ing and sowing. It was further necessary that the forests should 
be made to yield the maximum amount of produce and the largest 
surplus revenue that they were capable of with due regard to 
their maintenance and improvement, and that all work in them 
should be done in the manner most likely to gain the desired 
ends, so that money should not be squandered on failures. 
Questions of this kind had been studied for generations on the 
European continent, but very little was at that time known 
about them either in India or in England; and to enable him 
to make a beginning in the great work which lay before him, 
Mr Brandis obtained, in 1866, the services of two trained German 
* Read at the British Association Meeting at Aberdeen, 1885. 
