The Work of the Forest Department in India. 



1. History of the Forest Department. 



In matters of forest policy India may be congratulated on 

 having set a noteworthy example to the British race, which has. 

 not generally displayed any marked tendency to value and 

 cherish the heritage of Nature. Necessity has compelled 

 continental nations to keep a considerable proportion of their 

 acreage under forest and, after centuries of experience, to- 

 practise Forestry as a fine art. But Britain is still content to 

 rely on foreign imports for the great bulk of her timber supply, 

 and conservation of forest wealth has not been a special feature 

 of her administration in the past. 



Even in the earliest days of the British occupation the 

 destruction of the forests in many parts of India indicated the 

 necessity for a strong forest policy, but whether or not our 

 earlier administrators realized the importance of the forests to 

 the physical and economic welfare of the country, the fact 

 remains that little or nothing was done. During the period of 

 prosperity which followed on the British occupation, with an 

 increase of population and the attendant demand for timber 

 and fuel, with the spread of agriculture and the increase of 

 pastoral herds, the depletion of the forests began to assume a 

 serious aspect. In the early part of the nineteenth century 

 desultory attempts were made to safeguard the future existence 

 of the more valuable teak forests, on which the supply of ship- 

 building timber for the navy depended, but these attempts 

 developed into mere plans of exploitation without any effort to 

 ensure conservation, until these forests became more than ever 

 depleted of valuable timber. 



It was, however, by no means for want of advice and warning 

 that little of a practical and enduring nature was accomplished 

 during the first half of last century, for various officers were 

 deputed from time to time to report on the forests of different 

 localities, and all were insistent on the need for the conservation 

 and improvement of the forest tracts inspected by them. Thus 



