(* * \ 



111 ) 



For the very same reasons that 1 have assigned the first place to 

 a close and extended study of the conditions which determine the 

 survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence in a forest crop, 

 I have, in describing the methods of regeneration and treatment, 

 attempted in every instance to give, even at the risk of laying my- 

 self open to the charge diffuseness and ' needless prolixity, de- 

 tailed reasons for the measures and expedients recommended in 

 each case. 



One more point remains, on which some explanation is called for, 

 viz. the size of the book. It will often be urged that a Manual 

 written for the use of candidates for rangerships should contain 

 only the broad outlines of sylviculture and that a work of 200 pages 

 would have been sufficient for the purpose. Indeed I have some- 

 times been told that the instruction given in this book should have 

 been conveyed in the form of dogmatic rules that must be followed 

 without question. With this last dictum I am sure very few will 

 aoree, and I know that no one who has had any experience of 

 teaching or of the management of an educational establishment of 

 a technical character will ever assent to such a proposition. The 

 forester's art is, perhaps, the one least capable of all of being 

 reduced to rule of thumb, and least so in India, where for many 

 years to come, until the conditions under which we have to labour 

 have been thoroughly studied and mastered, our work must still be 

 chiefly of an experimental nature. Although the Forest School at 

 present grants nothing higher than the Ranger's Certificate, it must 

 not be forgotten that the better from among the certificated students 

 will some day be in charge of subdivisions, and some of them even 

 of small divisions, and whether as subdivisional or divisional officers, 

 will have to carry out on their own responsibility the most difficult 

 cultural operations. 



And then it must not be forgotten that rangers hold in the Indian 

 forest hierarchy the same administrative position as gardes gendr- 

 aux and oberforsters in France and Germany respectively, although 

 these latter ultimately supply the personnel for the controlling staff. 

 Such being the case, I need hardly add that the highest authority 

 in India has laid it down that we cannot teach too much sylvicul- 

 ture at our School. 



1 owe my sincere acknowledgments to several gentlemen for 

 criticism and advice received through the medium of the INDIAN 

 FORESTER, and hope that I shall continue to be favoured with the 

 results of their long and varied experience as well as of that of my 

 other colleagues. My own observations have necessarily been con- 



