442 TRANSACTIONS AXD PROCEEDINGS OF THE [Sess. lis. 



This, presented in the following year at Ipswich, coupled 

 with Colonel Michael's now assured work in Madras, 

 according to Sir George Birdwood, induced the Court of 

 Directors H.E.I.C. to inaugurate, in systematic fashion, a 

 regular Forest Department over the Madras Presidency, 

 and also over all the Peninsula. 



Dr. Cleghorn, two years after returning to India, sub- 

 mitted a report to the Government of Madras in 1856, 

 with proposals, which were sanctioned by the Government 

 of India in November of that year. He was appointed 

 Conservator of Forests for the Presidency on 19 th 

 December. Holding this position for five years, he gained 

 a crowning success in the prohibition by the Government, 

 in 1860, of kurnri cultivation in the forests by the natives. 

 The people loved and trusted him, for his kindly ways as 

 well as his medical serv'ices. Those at the head of affairs 

 in Madras knew how the good of the people lay near his 

 heart, and placed confidence in his calm judgment. So 

 resulted the successful carrying out of such a drastic 

 measure in Indian rural economy. 



From this time onwards Dr. Cleghorn sent frequent 

 communications to this Society, no doubt incited thereto 

 by his correspondent, Professor J. H. Balfour. In our 

 "Transactions," up till 1861, we may trace his early 

 progress in Forest Conservancy. All things came under 

 notice in those great traverses of Southern India, from the 

 Indian gutta tree, to the growth of yams and mangoes, 

 invaluable to the natives in famine times, to gigantic 

 cabbages in Orissa. The vegetable oils of Southern India, 

 as well as Sir F. Abel's best means of preventing timber tires, 

 and, above all, the preservation of teak forests, which alone 

 occupied two-thirds of his time, were brought under notice, 

 and a manual of Indian Botany was in course of prepara- 

 tion. The climates and soils of different localities were 

 given patient study, so far as suitable for the growth of the 

 new industries of tea and cinchona. Clements Markham 

 returned from South America to India with the young 

 plants which were to create a revolution in medicine and 

 planting in 1859, the year Dr. Cleghorn came home in 

 ni health, a circumstance depriving the latter of inspecting 

 the placing of the seedlings in their proper soil. 



