NOTES ON INDIAN FORESTRY IN 1906. 223 
(August to October) on Indian Sylviculture, Protection, Working 
Plans and Utilisation, Indian Forest Law and Departmental 
Procedure (Forest Code and Accounts); then by the voyage to 
India in November, and a four months’ tour (December to March) 
directed from the Imperial College at Dehra Din, before the 
commencement of actual service with the official year (April r). 
But if any collegiate course is to be continued after 1909, 
at Oxford or at any other University centre, then the teaching of 
Indian vernacular languages seems just as desirable as in the 
case of the Indian civilians, who study chiefly at Oxford and 
Cambridge during their one year of probation. 
What would perhaps be the most suitable training of all would 
be a system closely approximated to that given to the Indian Civil 
Service probationers—namely, after a collegiate course and an 
open competition in Forestry and the Cognate Sciences, a one- 
year’s course of study at Oxford or Cambridge in Indian Forestry, 
Forest Law, and Departmental Procedure and Accounts, together 
with Hindustani and other vernacular languages, and one 
special branch of science (Botany, Zoology, Geology, or Soil- 
Chemistry) according to choice. This would save time and 
money, and make the disparity between Civil Service and 
Forest probationers less glaring than at present, when the 
Forestry course costs far more, although the pay and the 
pension in prospect are both far less than the Civilian is 
certain to obtain. 
This subject is here adverted to at greater length than would 
otherwise have seemed proper, but the correspondence in the 
Indian Forester shows clearly that it is one of the burning questions 
of the day out there, the importance of which regarding the 
future progress of the Department it is impossible to ignore. 
One of the most interesting and valuable of the papers 
published during the year is an official bulletin (No. 9) by 
Mr Eardley Wilmot, Inspector-General of Forests, concerning 
The Influence of Forests on Water Supply. Nowhere in the 
world is this question of greater moment than in large portions 
of our Indian Empire, where scanty rainfall and deficient water- 
storage capacity mean at least poor crops, and often severe 
famine affecting millions of human beings throughout all the 
regions where the rainfall is scanty and precarious. In the 
Government of India Resolution of October 1894, the Depart- 
mental policy formally adopted was that “the sole object with 
