REPORT OX THE FORESTS OF UTDIA. 217 



felled was generally burned on the ground, and of course such 

 forests as remained in the hands of the State were soon subjected 

 to an increased drain — a drain increasing with spread of popula- 

 tion and contraction of forest area ; and it was not until the forest 

 had almost disappeared from the settled districts that the Govern- 

 ment was aroused to the necessity of conserving what was left ; 

 hence the formation of a Forest Department. 



The new department, imagining that it had only to enter on a 

 valuable State property and administer it to the best of its 

 ability, soon found itself at loggerheads with the people and the 

 district officers, who joined forces against the new power. The 

 former demanded the exercise of customary rights, the latter sup- 

 ported them, and pooh-poohed the idea of closing the forests to the 

 extension of cultivation, maintaining that the need for land for 

 cultivation was a pressing and appreciable one, and that the argu- 

 ment that the remaining forest area was short of what was 

 essential to the permanent well-being of the country was a mere 

 hypothesis, supported by no reliable facts. The general outcome 

 of this dispute was the allotment of the best forests, called 

 " reserved," to the charge of the Forest Department, while the 

 jungle lands, called u unreserved," were given over to the district 

 officers. The reserved forests continued to be saddled with local 

 rights, and various have been the devices resorted to to shake off 

 the trammels, and acquire an unlettered if even much restricted 

 State property. 



In Bombay the people were assigned a proportionate area for 

 each village, with absolute control over its management. Thev 

 felled the timber at once and sent it to market, cultivated the 

 land, and then demanded new forest grants, proportioned to the 

 increased cultivated area ; and elsewhere efforts in this direction 

 have not generally been much more successful. The reserved 

 forests have undergone considerable fluctuations in area since thev 

 passed into the hands of the Forest Department ; but while, on 

 the one hand, considerable areas have been given up to cultivation, 

 still more considerable areas of previously unreserved forests have 

 been constituted reserves. The last official published returns 

 give the area of reserved forests for British India, exclusive of 

 Madras and Bombay, but inclusive of the states of Mysore and 

 Berar, as 12,000 square miles, or. roughly speaking. 2 per cent. 

 of the area, which allows about one acre for every twenty head of 

 population. 



