3. But the value of afforestation as providing fuel and forest 

 reserves found its clearest and most forcible exposition in the 

 treatise f Dr. Voelcker, the Agricultural Chemist deputed in 

 1890 by the Royal Agricultural Society to report on the possibilities 

 of improvement in Indian agriculture. The formation of fuel and 

 fodder reserves is advocated by Dr. Voeloker as by far the most 

 important of all his recommendations. In one passage he speaks 

 of this as the " one practical measure which calls for the most 

 urgent attention and from which the greatest benefits may be 

 expected to follow." His other recommendations and suggestions 

 he considered of secondary importance compared with this. He 

 pointed <>ut that the two great needs of the cultivator are water 

 and manure. His enquiries showed that the good cultivator will 

 never burn his manure when he can get wood. The export of both 

 crops and manure must tend to the eventual deterioration of the 

 land. The first result of famine is the depletion of the cattle and 

 the further diminution of the manure available. Manure is as 

 essential as water as a safeguard against famine. It ought to be 

 possible by the provision of fuel and fodder reserves to restore the 

 manure to the land and by a resultant increase in cattle food to 

 augment the number of cattle, setting free still further supplies of 

 manure an endless chain of benefaction. Such a policy would 

 further tend to check the rising cost of cattle-power, a factor which 

 at present bids fair to profoundly modify the conditions of agricul- 

 tural development. 



4 . These principles are in their generalized and abstract form in- 

 disputable ; it is in their application to practice that difficulties arise. 

 Obstacles to the prosecution of a policy of creating fuel and fodder 

 reserves present themselves in connection with acquisition of land 

 and the disinclination of the landholder or the tenant to realize the 

 benefit of postponing his immediate advantage to the interest of 

 his posterity. There is a danger that the constitution of forest 

 reserves may involve the harbouring and multiplication of wild 

 animals which ravage surrounding cultivation, and a further 

 obstacle has presented itself in the necessity for replacing the 

 grazing areas curtailed during the establishment of such afforested 

 areas. Such restriction is liable, unless alternative grazing areas 

 are made available, to react unfavourably on cattle-breeding. En- 

 quiries tended to show that while the cultivator will burn wood 

 in preference to manure so long as free wood is available, it is very 

 doubtful if he will do so when the use of wood means an appreciable 

 sacrifice in money. While admitting the existence of a host of 

 practical difficulties to be encountered in carrying into effect a 

 general scheme of reboisement, the Lieutenant-Governor remains 



6 



