40 GENERAL REMARKS. 



of full grown trees which, though stopped ; fires and cattle, 

 remain to desolate the forests." 



Plantations. Forest Report, 1871-72, page 7, 1 wrote, para. 34 : " These 



" consist of fine railway fuel plantations and one of the 

 " valuable wood, red sanders. The fuel plantations gene- 

 " rally are doing fairly. In the first three or four years the 

 " work of establishing plants in so dry a district, is very 

 " difficult and expensive ; but though the plantation may 

 " never pay by the sale of its fuel, still the surrounding 

 " country will benefit as trees surely beget moisture." 



(( The Forest Department will thus indirectly benefit the 

 " ryot. The formation of plantations has become a very 

 <( heavy item in forest expenditure, but were the whole 

 " forest revenue expended in plantations and conservation, 

 " Government would, in the course of years, be a large gainer. 

 " What has already happened in Algeria threatens to occur 

 " here, unless speedy measures are taken to secure reserves, 

 <e and save what yet remains of existing forests. Fires and 

 " cattle are worse even than ryots, and should be excluded, 

 " perhaps when Collectors are Conservators, they will be able 

 <l to use their authority to more effect than the Forest De- 

 " partment has been able to do. I quite agree with the 

 " Revenue Department that there is enough for all, if it is pro- 

 " perly conserved, but that is the difficulty. In vain does the 

 " Forest Department try to save the ryots from themselves, 

 "their improvident habits too surely destroy the jungles 

 " which ought to last them for centuries. " On the subject of 

 indiscriminate felling, the Collector of Coimbatore remarked 

 Ryots confined to that ryots should be restricted to felling in their own village 

 gles. boundaries. I fully endorsed this view, and brought to the 



notice of Government that in Mysore wherever villages were 

 Hedge row tim- distant from the forest, they cultivated hedge row timber in 

 the shape of Neem Melia, Azedarach, Babool, A. Arabica, 

 &c., &c. It surely is no hardship that if u village has 

 destroyed its own small forest, it should be made to renew 

 it and not indent upon forest that belongs to the country, 

 and to which they can have no possible claim. It is the 



