

4 PRACTICAL FOBBBT MANAGEMENT. 



protection. The Government of India gradually awoke to the 

 serious position of affairs, and in November, 1862 a despatch was 

 sent to the Secretary of State, which is illuminating in its descrip- 

 tion of the very unsatisfactory state of affairs that then existed, 

 and from which the following extracts are taken : 



" It will be convenient in the first place to refer briefly to the 

 past history of forest administration by the Government of India, 

 and to point out the steps by which matters have been brought to 

 theirjpresent position. 



"lln Oudh a superintendent of forests has been appointed 

 since the re-occupation of that province ; from the latest informa- 

 tion before the Government he is engaged in fixing the boundaries 

 of the tracts of forest that are to be preserved and in preparing for 

 their survey, which is going on at the same time. 



" In the North-Western Provinces the difficulty of obtaining 

 timber has been painfully felt for the last fifteen years or more, 

 but the administration of the forests there up to the time of the 

 mutiny was a melancholy failure. A superintendent was appointed 

 in 1854 to the charge of the forests in the Dehra Dun and the west 

 of Rohilkhand, the result of whose bad management was the 

 completion of the ruin of almost all the forests that still contained 

 good sized trees. At present the most important part of the N'orth- 

 Western Provinces forests is under the direct management of 

 Lieutenant-Colonel Barnsay, the Commissioner of Kumaun, who 

 has at last introduced order into the administration. But he 

 works on the wreck of the forests, and it will take many years to 

 restore them to a proper condition. 



" It will be understood from this account that until quite the 

 last few years no forest administration has in truth existed. 

 Occasionally questions arose as to the proper system to follow, but 

 they were taken up in that department of the Government of 

 India to which they happened to be referred, and without any 

 methodic or systematic policy. Hence at one time or place, forest 

 management has been directly assumed by the Government, and 



