INTRODUCTION. 3 



but. often, on the contrary, keen sportsmen, they 

 constituted the forests game reserves, and severe 

 penal rules were sometimes promulgated against 

 even the removal of a stick. 



But throughout the whole period of their 

 domination in India, it does not appear that 

 there was ever such a demand for land for agri- 

 cultural purposes as to render further forest 

 clearance necessary. On the contrary, there is 

 evidence of such an anxiety on the part of the 

 great talookdars and zemindars to secure settlers 

 on their lands, as justifies the assumption that 

 the cultivable area was in excess of the available 

 labour. 



But with the advent of the British power in 

 India came a new era in the history of Indian 

 forests. The spread of a higher material civilisa- 

 tion, the dominance of a power mighty enough 

 to restrain internal war, and animated by a 

 disposition to foster every industry, gradually 

 introduced such a feeling of security among the 

 people at large as encouraged them to the display 

 of more domestic comfort and luxury than they 

 had dared indulge in under the rapacious eyes 

 of former rulers, and heavy drains were now 

 made on the existing stock of the remaining 

 forests. Peace and growing prosperity, aided, 

 perhaps, largely by the check given to the ancient 



