TRAINING OF PROBATIONERS FOR INDIAN FOREST SERVICE. 107 
RAV The Zs raining of Probationers for the Indian Forest Service. 
By the Hon. Epiror. 
When the national outlook for shipbuilding timber caused 
the British Government great anxiety about the navy towards 
the end of the eighteenth century, partial relief was obtained 
by the use of the teak-timber found along the western coast 
of India. The extraction of teak by the Bombay dockyard 
authorities gradually led to the formation of a Forest Depart- 
ment, and a similar branch of Public Works was also subse- 
quently started in Madras. After the annexation of the 
Tenasserim Provinces of Burma in 1826, the extraction of teak 
from the forests drained by the Salween and Attaran rivers 
formed part of the duties of the Civil Engineering Staff; but 
when the Pegu and Martaban provinces were added thereto in 
1852, a Forest Department was formed under a Conservator of 
Forests. In each of these three different parts of British India, 
medical men rendered the most valuable services as Conservators 
of Forests, viz., Dr Gibson in Bombay, Dr Hugh Cleghorn in 
Madras, and Dr MacClelland in Burma. On the resignation of 
the last-named in 1855, Dr (now Sir Dietrich) Brandis became 
Conservator in Burma, and was so successful in his administra- 
tion that, in 1862, he was (along with Dr Cleghorn from 
Madras) deputed by the Government of India to examine and 
report upon the forests of Northern India, with a view to the 
introduction of conservancy measures. The result of these two 
reports on the western and the eastern forest tracts skirting the 
base of the Himalaya mountains was the establishment, in 1863, 
of the Forest Department of India as an Imperial Department, 
absorbing the purely provincial departments in the Presidency 
of Bengal, and exercising a controlling supervision over the 
Forest Departments in the other two Presidencies, Bombay and 
Madras. ‘The choice of an Inspector-General of Forests fell on 
Dr Brandis, who held this high office till 1882, when he attained 
the age-limit of sixty years. 
For the first few years Forest officers had to be appointed 
without any special training, the service being recruited from 
the Indian army and by the appointment of those seeming 
qualified for the rough, adventurous life in the jungle, and 
fond of camp life and sport. It very soon, however, became 
