226 PROTECTION OF WOODLANDS. 



of species of forest trees and methods of treatment to be accorded 

 to them, and not infrequently compel him to adopt a system of 

 management, or mismanagement, opposed to all rational ideas of 

 sylviculture. And in endeavouring to supply the various 

 demands made by those having hereditary rights of various 

 descriptions, it is well-nigh impossible to satisfy everyone, so that 

 ill-feeling is often generated between the forest officials and the 

 parties having rights of user. It is not in India alone that such 

 dissatisfaction occasionally finds its ultimate expression in in- 

 cendiary forest fires (see note on page 235). 



But besides restricting the owner in possession from obtaining 

 such returns from his woodlands as he might otherwise hope to by 

 good management of an unfettered estate, servitudes are a bad 

 thing in general for the countries where they are prevalent, 

 for they directly interfere with the productive capacity of the 

 soil and its utilisation to the best advantage of the owner 

 directly, and of the community indirectly and generally. 



How wasteful are the servitudes and the existing senseless 

 legislative enactments in regard to the two great Crown Forests 

 that alone remain in England, the New Forest in Hampshire 

 (64,737 acres, or a little over 101 square miles) and the Forest 

 of Dean in Gloucestershire (22,000 acres, or over 34 square miles), 

 may be easily learned by anyone who takes the trouble to refer 

 to the Eeporfc of the House of Commons' Committee on th 

 " Woods and Forests and Land Revenues of the Crown" ordered 

 26th July 1889 to be printed. 



110. The Attitude of Forest Protection in regard to the Exercisi 

 of Forest Rights. 



The measures for safeguarding woodlands against the extinc 

 tion of other proprietary rights either in consequence of tl 

 increase in the number of those entitled to exercise the servitude 

 or in consequence of the diminution in the productive capacity 

 the soil, or suggestions relative to the extinctions of existii 

 servitudes, do not properly fall under the province of the bram 

 treating of the Protection of Woodlands, but are rather mattei 

 falling under the heading of legal and national- economic studies. 



But, on the other hand, it certainly comes within the propel 

 limits of Protection to insist on a proper control of all the various 



