57 



Next we find, in the year 1843, Mr. Gonolly, collector of Malabar, planting 

 teak on a large scale at Milambur, Dr. Gibson was appointed conservator of 

 forests in Bombay in 1847. 



In 1848, Captain Frederick Conyers Cotton caused the appointment of Lieu- 

 tenant James Michael (now Major-General J. Michael, C.S.I.) as Forest Officer in 

 the Anamalais, which post he retained for seven years. Dr. H. Cleghorn became 

 connected with forest conservancy in Mysore in 1847, and he was appointed Con- 

 servator of Forests in Madras in 1856. He was on special duty with the Govern- 

 ment of India about the years 1860-62 when he inquired into the forest matters in 

 the north-western Himalayas and elsewhere. In the Central Provinces Colonel 

 Pearson was the first Conservator who took up forestry in a business-like manner. 



These gentlemen and others were the pioneers of foiest conservancy in 

 India. Their action, though localized, caused the matter to be discussed and kept 

 before the public, and it led ultimately to the organiztion of a general depart- 

 ment by Dr. D. Brandis (now Sir Dietrich Brandis, K.C.I.E.) The latter was 

 appointed superintendent of Forests in Pegu in 1856 by that great administrator, 

 Lord Dalhousie. Dr. Brandis was principally instrumental in saving the Burma 

 teak forests from destruction by enterprising timber merchants that is to say 

 estates which yield now a gross revenue of some 250,000 a year. In 1862, he 

 was attached to the Government of India, and in 1864 appointed the first Inspec- 

 tor-General of Forests to that Government. He then set to work to establish the 

 Indian Forest Department, and to introduce a systematic management of the 

 forests. At first he devoted himself to the Provinces directly under the govern- 

 ment of India ; subsequently he was twice deputed to Bombay, and he totally 

 re-organized the forest department in Madras in 1881-83, immediately before his 

 finil retirement from India. 



The first duty of the new department was to ascertain the extent and 

 character of the remaining forests and especially of that portion which still be- 

 longed to the Government. This inquiry was not of special difficulty, except in 

 so far as a sufficiently trained staff was not available at the outset. 



The next step was to take the State forests under protection and manage- 

 ment, and now difficulties arose. There were no doubt some administrative 

 officers who soon preceived that it was to the true interest of the people to pre- 

 serve a suitable forest area, and who cordially assisted the new department, but 

 the majority of the officers of the State failed for a long time to accept that view, 

 principally because the idea of forest preservation was rew to them, and they 

 feared complications from the facts that the rights of government in the forests 

 were in many cases ill-defined, and that the people claimed extensive rights by 

 prescription, and on other grounds, in the areas which were the property of the 

 State. 



The first Indian forest law was passed in 1865 ; it provided that the Govern- 

 ment might declare any land belonging to it a Government State forest, and that 

 such declaration should not abridge any right held by private persons over such 

 areas ; but the Act did not provide power to inquire into and legally settle the 

 rights of third persons in the State forests. Under this Act considerable progress 

 was made in the preservation of the forests, wherever the population was limited 

 and the forest areas extensive. 



But where the reverse conditions prevailed, and where the rights claimed by 

 the people, rightly or wrongly, were extensive, the benefits of the Act soon 

 threatened to become abortive. Consequently fresh legislation was soon contem- 

 plated, and after years of discussion, a new Act was passed known as the Indian 



