8 PRACTICAL FOREST MANAGEMENT. 



an Act of the Legislature. But the exact way of doing this must 

 be a matter for further consideration. 



" Having thus secured, as far as possible, that the boundaries 

 of those forests shall be respected, which it is intended to preserve, 

 and having obtained maps and surveys of the whole of them, a 

 solid basis would be got on which to establish an efficient forest 

 administration, the great end of which should be to obtain the 

 largest possible quantity of produce from the forests, consistent 

 with their permanent usefulness. The conditions under which 

 this would be possible would probably be very various in various 

 places, and success could only be looked for as the result of 

 experience, and careful and continued experiment brought to 

 perfection under local management, but under some central control 

 or system of inspection. 



" When the forests are once removed out of the category of 

 waste land, and dealt with as a special State domain, there will be 

 a very great step made in advance in obtaining for the forest 

 administration a better denned position. The circumstance that 

 forests have till now been reckoned as waste, and their produce 

 treated as miscellaneous revenue, could not fail to be pernicious, 

 and has very probably conduced no little to the present state 

 of things. A primary object to a collector of land revenue 

 is to remove land from the class that pays no revenue to 

 that which pays, and his tendency will be to sacrifice forest 

 for cultivation. The idea that forest is a thing valuable in itself 

 and, in truth, just as essential to the community as fields of 

 wheat, sugar or cotton, took a long time to spring up, and, in 

 fact, is not even now generally realised in that complete manner 

 that is essential before forest management can be said to stand on 

 a proper basis. The forests, when set aside as such, should be 

 made to assume a distinct plan of their own in the departments 

 producing revenue, and the success or failure of the administra- 

 tion should be made at once apparent from the state of the 

 balance on the forest budget. 



