76 THE FOREST LANDS OF FINLAND. 



prohibition of this practice in the Mysore country will 

 drive a great many of those who have carried on their 

 operations in the forests of that country into Canara, and 

 the destruction will thus be carred on more rapidly than 

 ever, until the woods are finally exhausted. Independent 

 of these considerations, it is not a pursuit in which it is 

 at all desirable to encourage the people readily to engage 

 in. It has, no doubt, some attraction for those who are 

 impatient of control, and are fond of a wild, roving life ; 

 but it leads to unsettled habits, and takes many away from 

 the regular cultivation of a fixed spot/ 



Mr G. S. Forbes, Sub-Collector of Canara, referred to 

 by Mr Blane, had written as follows : 



'The third source of consumption I have to mention 

 arises from the cultivation of Koomaree, which, as you are 

 aware, is carried on upon tracts where the trees have been 

 previously felled and burned. The value of timber thus 

 destroyed by one man, calculating it by the number of 

 logs it might have yielded, is at least twenty times as 

 great as the value of the crop of ragi obtained in the two 

 years that cultivation is continued ; and the amount of 

 duty which the trees would have yielded if exported as 

 firewood, bears the same proportion to the paltry sum 

 paid to Government for the clearing. To abolish this 

 species of cultivation would deprive a great number of 

 persons of their accustomed means of support, and I have 

 only therefore to suggest that the cultivation of Koomaree 

 be forbidden in all localities where trees for timber or 

 firewood are likely to be felled ; such localities may be 

 determined by the means of carriage which exist. On 

 hills and on tracts distant from the lines of water carriage, 

 the timber consumed could not be turned to any other 

 account (it being always understood that no teak or sissoo, 

 &c., should be touched.) The above remarks apply chiefly 

 to the forests below Ghats, and which extend several miles 

 from the hills towards the sea, and from the Goa boundary 

 to the river Tadri, which bounds the Ankola taluk.' 



