488 REARING OF THE ESTABLISHED CROP. 



The present ruined condition of our forests is due to the com- 

 bined continued action, during successive centuries, of several 

 causes, the principal of which are : 



(a) Fires. The Vedic hymns afford evidence that at the time 

 the Aryans were entering their new southern home India was 

 covered with magnificent forests which were rarely burnt, and that 

 one of the acts forbidden to themselves, under religious sanction, 

 by the new settlers was to set fire to forests. But with increasing 

 population, extension of cultivation and multiplication of herds, 

 this salutary prohibition w r as gradually set at nought and ultimately 

 forgotten, and in these days its revival by the criminal law is 

 regarded as an immense hardship and undue interference with a 

 necessary and time-honoured custom. How and to what extent 

 fires injure forests has been fully described at pp. 415-6. 



(6) Reckless &r uncontrolled utilisation. Before indiscriminate 

 felling was stopped in our forests, it was a common thing to see a 

 large tree felled in order to obtain, by adzing, only one or two 

 small scantlings. If a single good log was required, several trees 

 likely to furnish it were felled and only the best one of these uti- 

 lised. To save trouble in felling and conversion, large trees were 

 cut several feet above the ground from the point where it was thin 

 enough for the purpose of the Vandal requiring it. When railway 

 construction was begun in India, a clean sweep was made in all 

 neighbouring forests of every tree that seemed large enough to 

 yield a sleeper. In this way thousands of trees were felled which 

 were never used up. This reckless felling brought matters to a 

 crisis in the Central Provinces and led to the establishment of the 

 Forest Department there. But in those forests, as in most others, 

 the proverbial stable door was locked only after the steed had been 

 stolen. In a word, until the State undertook the protection of its 

 forests, there was no thought for the morrow. Each one helped 

 himself to what he wished, not only without stint, but in the most 

 wasteful manner imaginable. In felling the trees nothing was done 

 to save neighbouring individuals from being damaged, and the 

 conversion and export operations were carried on with as little soli- 

 citude as the fellings. Nay, even since the organisation of the 

 Department, it has been the practice in many of our forests to take 

 out all the sound well-shaped marketable trees and leave principally 

 the rubbish standing. 



(c) Grazing and lopping for fodder. During the rains and 

 cold weather, while the grass was green, the ground was trodden 

 by the feet of cattle into a hard pan, into which the small roots of 



