Property Conditions. 391 



In the Act of 1878, there was a clause calling for 

 protection of private forest property against trespass 

 and encroachment, but this remained a dead letter. 

 By later legislation the government is entitled to exer- 

 cise control over private forests and lands, if it appears 

 necessary for the public weal, or if the treatment 

 which such forests have received from their owners 

 affect the public welfare or safety injuriously; but in 

 such cases the owner can require the government to 

 expropriate the land in question. 



The forest act also provided that the government 

 may assign to village communities from the reserved 

 forest area so-called village forests, and make rules for 

 their protection, use and management. How far this 

 policy has been applied does not appear. 



There are still areas the ownership of which is not 

 settled, and rights which are still in doubt, the work 

 of the so-called forest settlements still going on, several 

 thousand square miles being annually changed in 

 status, and several thousand dollars annually spent to 

 quiet rights of user. 



3. Development of Forest Policy. 



Through the long history of India that preceded the 

 arrival of the Mohammedans in the 10th to 12th 

 centuries, it appears that the forest area was only 

 slowly encroached upon by the Hindoo civilization. 

 Even when the invaders, nomads by fiabit, drove 

 many of the native race into the jungle to eke out a 

 precarious existence, owing to the remarkable re- 

 cuperative powers of a tropical nature the impression 

 made was not permanent. Although much forest 



