PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION, 



This book is no more than what it professes to be, viz., a Bough 

 Draft of a Manual embodying especially for the use of Indian stu- 

 dents the general principles of sylviculture.. 



It originated in this wise. In 1881, when instruction was given 

 for the first time at the Forest School, Mr. Fisher and I were 

 asked to prepare a Manual of Forestry to take the place of the 

 lectures. The task of bringing out the Sylviculture portion of the 

 book fell to me. As the undertaking was a very large one and 

 required more experience than a single man possessed, Mr. R. 

 Thompson joined us in 1882, and 1 was relieved of that portion 

 of the work which relates to the special application of general 

 principles in the cultivation and treatment of our forests and 

 trees. Thus my allotted task has now been completed. 



In carrying it out I have never had the time or the opportunity 

 to complete the entire book in manuscript before publishing it. 

 As each section, indeed often each Article, was written, it was sent 

 to press, and so when the later parts came to be written in the 

 same piece-meal fashion, I constantly felt the necessity of suppress- 

 ing, modifying or adding to was already in print. Nay more than 

 this. Owing to special duties which absorbed all my time, I have 

 frequently, for months, been compelled to lay the work aside until 

 I had once more leisure to resume it. Indeed on one occasion not 

 a word was added to the manuscript for more than a year. Even 

 when able to prosecute the work, I could make for myself time 

 only at nights in the solitude of our forest camps. Such being 

 the case, it is not surprising that the first page was printed in 

 November 1885, while the last one is only just leaving the press 

 after a lapse of three years. During this time I have also been pre- 

 paring in Urdu a course of forestry and the allied sciences for the 

 use of candidates for the Forester's certificate, part of which course 

 Las already been published. It will thus be readily conceded that 

 the circumstances in which this Draft has been written and pub- 

 lished have been conducive neither to unity of ideas, plan or 

 arrangement, nor even to the little amount of literary polish that is 

 generally held to be sufficient in an educational work on a scienti- 

 fic subject. 



When I adopted the plan of publication just described, I was of 

 course aware of the enormous disadvantages under which I would 



