1904 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



529 



officers, in Ceylon, the Transvaal, 

 Uganda, Mauritius, the Soudan, and 

 the Straits Settlements, and the West 

 Indian forests have been inspected 

 officially by an Indian forest officer 

 with a view of establishing a forestry 

 department. What is now wanted for 

 the Empire is the establishment of a 

 Forest School in Britain, which will 

 train the higher forest officers for In- 

 dia and the Colonies, and instructors 

 in forestry for the larger Colonies, 

 where superior and inferior schools of 

 forestry, on the model of Nancy and 

 Barres, must soon be established. For 

 service at home, the future higher offi- 

 cials of the Crown forests will require 

 thorough instruction in forestry, and 

 also the instructors in forestry at the 

 Agricultural Colleges, at Edinburgh, 

 and at the school for woodmen estab- 

 lished at the Forest of Dean, another 

 of which class is proposed for Alice 

 Holt Wood. Such a school will also 

 afford instruction in forestry to the 

 sons of our landowners and to men 

 preparing at our Universities for the 

 posts of land agents to large estates. 



I propose here to give a short ac- 

 count ( chiefly taken from Ribben- 

 trop's Forestry in British India) of 

 the instruction adopted for our Indian 

 forest officials, who have hitherto 

 formed the principal corps of trained 

 foresters in the British Empire, and 

 to discuss the advisability of now ex- 

 tending this instruction so as to in- 

 clude all the classes mentioned above, 

 whose services are required to make 

 forestry a serious pursuit throughout 

 the Empire. 



The necessity for establishing a 

 Forestry Department in India was first 

 realized in 1806, when Captain Wat- 

 son was appointed Conservator of 

 Forests in Malabar, chiefly to protect 

 the growth of teak and other timbers 

 for the Navy, but a reaction ensued 

 in 1823, owing to complaints of the 

 traders, and the cpnservatorship was 

 abolished. Great ravages were then 

 allowed in the State forests, and it 

 was not till 1842 that Mr. Conolly 

 commenced the plantation of the fa- 

 mous Nilambur teak plantation, and 



in 1847, Dr. Gibson, a botanist of 

 note, was appointed Conservator of 

 Forests, in Bombay, and in 1856 Dr. 

 Cleghorn, Conservator of Forests in 

 Madras. In 1852, Pegu, with its 

 splendid teak forests, was annexed, 

 and Dr. McClelland appointed super- 

 intendent of these forests, but a per- 

 manent policy for the forest adminis- 

 tration of India was first laid down by 

 Lord Dalhousie in 1855, Dr. Dietrich 

 Brandis, brother-in-law of General 

 Havelock, being appointed superin- 

 tendent of the Pegu forests in 1856, 

 and the forests of Tennasserim and 

 Martaban being added to his charge in 



1857- 



Dr. Brandis then introduced those 

 principles of enumeration and organ- 

 ization, to the working of the forests, 

 that form the basis of our present 

 working plans, and created a practi- 

 cal system of working the Burmese 

 forests of teak, with due considera- 

 tion to the perpetuation of the trees 

 by natural and artificial regeneration. 



His conservative policy interfered 

 with the gains of timber merchants, 

 who were very powerful in Rangoon, 

 and they prevailed so far on the Gov- 

 ernment of India that orders were 

 issued to open all the Pegu forests 

 to private enterprise, but the selec- 

 tion of the trees to be felled was left 

 to the control of the Forest Depart- 

 ment. Fortunately the Tharawaddy 

 forests were still worked under com- 

 plete departmental control, and after 

 a few years' experience the state lost 

 about 1,000,000 in the open forests, 

 whilst the Tharawaddy forests pro- 

 duced a large regular income. Cana- 

 dian timber merchants still form the 

 greatest obstacle to scientific forestry 

 in the Dominion of Canada. 



Dr. Brandis had gained the day 

 against the timber traders, and in 1862 

 was appointed Inspector-General of 

 Forests for the Government of India. 



Up to this time, officers were ap- 

 pointed to the Indian Forest Service 

 without any special training, but Dr. 

 Brandis came home in 1866 and in- 

 duced Lord Salisbury, who was then 

 Secretarv of State for India, to ap- 



