AN EXPLOEATION IN THE FAR EAST. 435 



as that I have attempted to describe. I have pointed oiit 

 in another place a few mistakes which I think we have made 

 in our administration of these central forests ; but I think 

 that, considering how little knowledge of the matter we had 

 to commence with, the results already attained are really 

 wonderful. The scientific forester must now take the place of 

 the explorer; and the Government have taken the proper 

 course in seeing that all newly-appointed forest officers shall 

 in future go through a course of instruction in the advanced 

 schools of forestry in Germany and France. The only danger 

 now remaining is lest a too purely professional view of forest 

 questions be allowed to exclude considerations bearing power- 

 fully on the general economy of the masses of the people, and 

 particularly of the hill tribes : and perhaps lest cut-and-dried 

 theories, based on the example of moist temperate regions, be 

 applied without sufficient caution to the very different con- 

 ditions of tropical forests. For example, one of the prac- 

 tices of Continental forestry, the working of forests in blocks 

 by rotation, though probably quite inapplicable to a hot 

 country, where stripping the soil of all the trees at once 

 converts it into an arid desert, is still aimed at in our 

 Indian forests, and is the cause of much, and I believe 

 wasteful, expenditure of money. Many important matters 

 can even now be dealt with only in a tentative manner ; 

 and the wisdom of the administrator must always be joined 

 to the technical skill of the forester to secure the best results. 

 One word more. Outcry has not been wanting on the part 

 of some shallow writers, who deem themselves the represen- 

 tatives of the vast silent opinion of the Indian peoples, 

 against the apparent absence of immediate result, in the 

 shape of great supplies of timber and a full exchequer, from 

 the exertions and outlay of these few years in the forests. It 



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