158 COLONIAL REPORTS MISCELLANEOUS. 



Reservation being ensured, the forests should be managed with 

 a view to supplying a sustained and increasing yield of produce, 

 both for local requirements and for the home markets, and this 

 can all be brought about with but little interference with the 

 recognised rights and privileges of the inhabitants. The supply 

 of their wants should be the first care of the management, and 

 after that can come the exploitation of produce for the European 

 markets. At present there are vast forests available for both 

 purposes, but a time will come when they will be so restricted 

 in size that the utmost difficulty will be experienced in supplying 

 the various demands. It is, therefore, highly desirable that the 

 best areas should at once be selected and marked off as estates 

 for the permanent supply of those wants before the former have 

 been much damaged or destroyed ; and if the two-fold character 

 of the markets to be supplied is kept in mind, it will be realised 

 that the creation of a few reserves will be totally insufficient to 

 meet the reqiiiremeiits of the case. Nothing short of something 

 like 40 per cent, of the wooded area will be required if the in- 

 habitants of the country are to be provided with that share of 

 forest produce for their daily and other requirements to which 

 they are justly entitled. 



Concurrently with this removal of produce, measures will have 

 to be taken, by the properly arranged cutting of the ripe material 

 and by sowing and planting, to replace what has been removed 

 from the forests, and thus ensure a continuous supply in the 

 future. 



None of the measures, however, will be of much avail unless 

 they are continually exercised and enforced, any breaks in the 

 continuity will be fatal both to the management and to the 

 results originally contemplated. Continuity of purpose and 

 action are the very breath a-nd life of sound forest administra- 

 tion. Frequent changes of policy, management, &c., bring about 

 that uncertainty and want of finality in the results that it is the 

 main object of scientific forestry to avoid. A forest crop, as it 

 is, takes a, very long time to mature; and the result of con- 

 tinually altering the treatment to which it is subjected can, 

 under such conditions, be easily imagined. The loss of time 

 alone is immense. 



As regards the danger threatening the wooded areas of 

 Aquapim, by the encroachment on them of the adjacent grass 

 lands and savannah forests, I fear that the damage already done 

 is too great to be repaired except by the expenditure of large 

 sums of money, which the Administration will at present 

 scarcely be able to afford. It is, however, well within the means 

 of the Government to stop the further spread of this damage and 

 secure for the further cultivation of cocoa, rubber, and other 

 tropical crops, land that must in time, under the present methods 

 of farming, be lost for that purpose. By preserving a broad belt 

 of forest between the planting centres and the dry grass country, 

 a suitable barrier against the spread of the latter can be pro- 

 vided for. This protective belt of forest should be strictly 

 reserved. 



