REPORT ON THE FORESTS OF INDIA. 215 



lands ill his neighbourhood ; from them he has drawn his fuel and 

 building material, and in them he has grazed his cattle — privileges 

 for which he made no direct payment to the State, nevertheless he 

 was always liable to be called on to cut and deliver building timber 

 free of charge. The question now waiting solution is, " Has the 

 cultivator in the course of his evolution from serf to part pro- 

 prietor of his fields, acquired proprietary rights in the forests 1 " 

 In some cases claims to absolute proprietary rights over local 

 forests have been advanced, but only in rare instances, and such 

 claims have been overruled ; but the right to graze an unlimited 

 number of cattle in the forests, and to supply themselves with 

 building material and fuel free of charge, for home consumption, 

 is generally advanced all over the country. There are also forest 

 tribes in some provinces who, from time immemorial, have de- 

 pended for their livelihood on the sale of forest products in the 

 neighbouring towns ; and more formidable still are those tribes of 

 wandering cultivators, most numerous in Burmah, for whom cus- 

 tom has sanctioned the privilege of felling heavily-timbered forests, 

 burning the timber on the ground, snatching a few crops from the 

 rich forest soil, and then carrying their destructive labours else- 

 where. 



All these rights are customary rights, and the Government, while 

 realising the incompatibility of their exercise with the permanent 

 maintenance of its forests, shows no disposition to ignore any of 

 them. The first-named class of rights is the most wide-spread, 

 and perhaps one of the worst features connected with it is, that 

 the claimants make no demand to have their rights of usage 

 secured to them in perpetuity. On the contrary, with spread of 

 population, the people regarding land for cultivation as the first 

 necessary, never demur to one of their number acquiring an 

 absolute right (for cultivation) over a portion of the forest in 

 which the village heretofore exercised common rights. This right 

 of the State to give its forests to private individuals, and extinguish 

 all communal rights in such grants passes unquestioned. The 

 claims of the people are limited to the demand to be allowed 

 unrestricted rights in those forests in their neighbourhood, in 

 which they have always enjoyed them, as long as such forests shall 

 remain in the hands of the State. Let them all be given up for 

 cultivation, and the people are content to pay for their fuel and 

 timber requirements, and for grazing their cattle in distant forests. 



A first-class forest will sometimes include a score or more of 



