FORESTRY EDUCATION : ITS IMPORTANCE AND REQUIREMENTS. 35 



simplest requires a good deal of training and experience to avoid 

 mistakes being made which can never be subsequently retrieved. 

 When there is a large demand for the produce of a wood the 

 plan is likely to be inevitably somewhat intricate. To quote an 

 instance : I was in charge of the Darjeeling forests in the 

 Eastern Himalaya some years ago. Darjeeling is a large civil 

 station situated at some 7000 feet elevation. The population 

 is considerable, and there are military cantonments both above 

 and below the station. Out in the district, tea-gardens, all 

 requiring forest produce, were situated on the forest boundaries. 

 To supply this population with its requirements in timber, 

 firewood, charcoal, grazing in the woods for milch cattle, and 

 fodder for the horses, ponies and mules of the station, etc., 

 required a very nice management of the forests. Every stick of 

 timber and fuel could be sold without satisfying the demands. 

 To ensure continuity of working, the forests are managed under 

 highly scientific working-plans, for there are several plans in 

 force in diff"erent areas, which have to be followed undeviatingly 

 by the officer in charge. To manage such plans meant a great 

 deal of heavy work for the staff ; with the constant rotation of 

 felling and planting, the latter work undertaken during the 

 monsoon in a locality where the rainfall is over 140 inches; the 

 upkeep of roads constantly liable to slips ; the preparation years 

 beforehand of export roads or sledge-ways or wire rope-ways for 

 the extraction of the material from inaccessible localities ; the 

 constant friction with the cattle graziers in the forest, a wild, 

 difficult class of men to deal with ; and the usual petty pilfering 

 inseparable from forest work in the east, kept the staff pretty 

 well employed, whilst in addition to boundary inspection and 

 fire protection work, the upkeep of the control forms and books 

 in connection with the working-plans formed no light portion of 

 the office work. Only a highly trained staff could undertake to 

 cope with the management of such woods as I have endeavoured 

 to picture here. 



Now, woods may be managed or mismanaged without a plan. 

 But no continuity in the working of a wood can be assured unless 

 its management is based on a plan, and forestry without 

 continuity of working is not forestry. I do not suppose there 

 is a forester amongst us who is not well aware of this. I feel 

 perfectly certain also that no one who has once been into the 

 woods and seen and understood all that is to be learnt there, but 



