THE INDIAN FOREST SCHOOL. 159 
forests situated in one locality, so as to form a training ground 
for the students, and to place them under the charge of a separate 
Conservator of Forests, who should also be Director of the school. 
Several places suggested themselves as being suitable for this pur- 
pose: there were the Dehra Din, Jaunsar, and Bhagiratti divi- 
sions of the North-Western Provinces, the Darjeeling and Jal- 
paigori divisions of Bengal, as well as certain forests in the 
Central Provinces and the Punjab ; but the choice fell, ultimately, 
on the North-Western Provinces divisions, which were con- 
sidered specially suitable on the following grounds— 
1. They comprised a sufficient area of demarcated forest pre- 
senting a great variety of vegetation; they had been 
protected for a long time, and in some portion of them 
the demand was equal to the supply. 
. The forests were of great financial importance, and in them 
were to be found instructive arrangements for the trans- 
port of timber. 
3. Some of the forests contained conifers and oaks similar to 
the European species, and the experience gained in Europe 
bo 
could thus be directly utilised in their management. 
4. A portion of the forests was free of rights, and where rights 
existed they were clearly defined ; fire protection and 
plantation work were also in progress. 
. Hindustani is the language of the North-Western Provinces, 
and it is also spoken in the Punjab, Ajmere, Oudh, 
and part of Bengal, as well as in the Central Provinces 
and in Berar. Further than this, the head-quarters 
of the Forest Survey Department were at Dehra Din, 
and it was proposed to unite the two offices of Superin- 
tendent of Forest Surveys and Director of the Forest 
School. 
oO 
The locality once fixed upon, it became necessary to provide an 
efficient staff of officers to work under the Director, in order both 
to bring the school forests as rapidly as possible into a condition 
in which they could advantageously be used as a training ground, 
and to impart theoretical instruction in the lecture room, as well 
as to give practical instruction in the forests. It was necessary 
to draw up working-plans or schemes of management, to establish 
experimental plots which could be systematically subjected 
to different kinds of treatment, to form a library, a chemical 
