FORESTRY. 9 



subsequently transferred from the Indian to the Cape Forest 

 Service. By 1884 the newly-formed Forest Department 

 had got to work, the oldest of the western plantations 

 being founded by Mr. J S. Lister, now Conservator of Forests in 

 charge of the Eastern Conservancy. The Cape Forest Department 

 may thus be said by now (1905) to have had twenty clear years 

 working existence. During that time the timber plantations near 

 Cape Town, the chief Colonial market, have been largely extended, 

 more especially recently with the object of supplying sleepers to 

 the railways. At the same time the " high- timber " indigenous 

 forest of the country has been demarcated, and the wasteful system 

 under which it was formerly worked replaced by systematic fellings 

 under the supervision of competent Forest Officers. 



For administrative purposes Cape Colony is divided into four 

 Conservancies, each in charge of a Conservator of Forests, the 

 Conservator stationed at Cape Town having at the same time 

 consultive functions on technical matters. 



As soon as the forests had been demarcated, it was seen that a 

 Forest Act was 'necessary to give effect to the demarcations, and 

 to regulate and enforce the working of the forests. In i885 I 

 submitted a draft iounded on the Madras Forest Act of 1882, 

 and in 1888 was passed the Cape Forest Act, No. 28 of 

 1888, which has since been in force, and which has has 

 served as a model for other Colonial forest legislation, not in 

 South Africa only. In 1902 this Act was strengthened and amended 

 in certain particulars, the chief of these being a provision which 

 requires that the National Forests cannot be alienated, nor any 

 forest rights granted, without the previous sanction of both Houses 

 of the Legislature. Further measures may be necessary in order 

 to entirely safeguard the forests from the loss to which they are 

 liable as long as they remain under political control. 



The total cost of forest work during the last twenty- two years 

 in Cape Colony has been over three quarters of a million pounds 

 sterling, of which sum more than a quarter of a million pounds 

 sterling has been spent on the timber plantations in the neighbour- 

 hood of Cape Town and the south-west. There is a total Forest 

 Staff of twenty-six (Conservators and their assistants) in the upper 

 grades, and eighty-four European Foresters, besides a few native 

 guards in the Native Territories. 



It was early recognised that an efficient Forest Staff required 

 that the superior officers should have a technical training beyond 

 what was obtainable in South Africa. In 1892, Mr. C. B. McNaugh- 

 ton, the present Conservator at Knysna, was sent for a special 

 course of training to the Cooper's Hill Forest School in England, 

 and he has since been followed by four others, all of these, except 

 Mr. K. Carlson (at present Conservator in the Orange River Colony), 

 obtaining a grant from Government which averaged som what 

 less than half their total expenses. Partly on account of the high 

 cost of this training, the last Forest Officer sent from the Cape 

 for his professional training has proceeded to the American Forest. 



