PROTECTION OF FOREST BOUNDARIES. 219 



CHAPTEE I. 



PROTECTION OF FOREST BOUNDARIES. 



106. Means of Protection ; Boundary Marks. 



Boundary marks are intended to serve the purpose of protect- 

 ing the property they mark off from interference by any parties 

 other than the owner or his agents ; and where the ownership of 

 one proprietor ceases and that of another begins, it is highly 

 desirable that some distinctive marks should be set up for easy 

 recognition by the parties mutually concerned. 



Boundary marks of one sort or another have been customary 

 throughout time immemorial in all lands. 1 Under the most 

 primitive conditions, or even at the present time wherever prac- 

 ticable (as in the formation of State Eeserved Forests in India), 

 the choice of lines fell on natural boundaries as forming the most 

 convenient and unmistakable marks, quite definite enough to 

 satisfy all the requirements of an early state of society. The 

 marks usually chosen, and still in many cases remaining even now 

 as the boundaries of large estates, were streams, valleys, ridges of 

 hills, pathways, rocks, and conspicuous trees. 



These natural boundary marks are, however, not always per- 

 manent and immovable, for streams alter their courses, paths vary 

 and change in the course of time, and trees specially marked, or 

 known by designation far and wide, even when lopped so as to 

 diminish the risk of breakage or windfall, ultimately die off : rocks 

 and ridges of hills have, of course, a practical stability that secures 

 them against any of the objections to these other marks. 



But as the original primitive conditions gradually gave way to 



1 It may be of interest to note that in primitive lands the penal laws are usually 

 most severe against offences relating to boundary marks, then in regard to offences 

 relating to a man's wife or wives, then to offences against his person, and finally, to 

 offences against his other property. It thus seems tacitly argued that his most 

 valuable possessions are his land, his wife (or wives), then his own healthy body, and 

 lastly, his personal effects. Trans. 



