" SARTAGE " IN INDIA. 77 



Some ten or twelve years later, towards the close of 

 1858, Mr Beaumont, manager of the Beypur Iron Works, 

 called the attention of the authorities to the loss to 

 Government, by the practice then prevailing extensively 

 in Malabar, 'of cutting down maiden forests by the 

 Malai-Karen and native landowners for the purpose of 

 cultivation. 'The grains usually planted,' says he, 'are 

 paddy (rice), skama (millet), and tomara. For the two 

 last Government receive no tax. For the first (paddy), 

 which is principally sown, it is true that the circar 

 receives the usual nigady, but, for the following reasons, 

 this affords to the country an inadequate return for the 

 destruction of forests, which, in later years, would prove of 

 immense value. The tract of land denuded of forest can, 

 from the want of irrigation, only be cultivated profitably 

 once in five, or sometimes in twenty years. Thus does the 

 country receive but one year's tax out of, say nine, upon 

 ground so cleared. It will, upon the other hand, readily 

 be perceived that these wholesale depredators, being 

 unable to cultivate the same land except during one year, 

 will remove to another locality where maiden jungle 

 stands, and there resume the work of devastation. It is 

 unnecessary for me to enumerate, to one so well acquainted 

 with the district, the numberless tracts of magnificent 

 forest which, during my short residence in Malabar I have 

 seen swept from existence by the process ; but I cannot 

 refrain, whilst one opportunity offers, of recording my 

 decided opinion that unless Government take some step 

 to check this system of wanton destruction, in a very few 

 years the chief portion of these magnificent forests will 

 present little but a barren waste, studded with the finest trees 

 which can adorn or fertilise the district in which they stand.' 



Under date of 7th December 1858, Dr Cleghorn, Con- 

 servator of Forests under the Madras Government, reported 

 as follows : 



'In E.M.C., 28th July 1857, I was directed to write 

 a full report upon this wasteful system. I have paid 



