494, SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—K*. 
forests, as softwoods and bamboos nearly always occupy such areas and take the 
place of more valuable timber trees, and it may take many years, even centuries, 
before the timber trees find an opportunity of retaking their rightful place. It is 
estimated that at the present time some 2,000 square miles are destroyed by this 
method annually in Nigeria alone. In Kenya and Ceylon large areas of forest have 
been destroyed, and in many other parts of the Empire the process still goes on. 
The energy and ability of the cultivator have been taken advantage of to introduce 
plantations of useful trees among the agricultural crops, the method having been 
first introduced in Burma with teak about 1870. It has spread during the present 
century to India, Africa and elsewhere, and has attained very considerable importance 
as an effective method of introducing valuable hardwoods into areas which may 
have been devastated many years ago or may never have been of value. 
In most parts of the Empire where valuable forests existed heavy and wasteful 
exploitation began as soon as a use was found for timber, and, without dwelling on 
the record of this depressing period, I shall try and trace briefly the history of 
conservation and control. 
The story has often been the same. Startled by the destruction and waste of an 
important national asset, governments have usually pushed through legislation to 
enable them to make State reserves, to appoint officers of a Department of Forestry, 
and to control the excessive felling by traders and licensees. These laws, which to 
begin with were better than nothing, have usually been amended, improved ‘and 
made stricter by subsequent enactments, and it is not difficult to realise that the 
early legislation was often very defective. 
As a preliminary to the introduction of systematic management it was customary 
to employ a trained forest officer, usually from India, to report on the forests and 
the measures to be taken to preserve them, and many of the old reports then produced 
are of the greatest interest. These officers not only examined and reported on the 
forests in detail, but also made proposals for staff, reservation, afforestation and so 
on, and sometimes even drew up preliminary working plans. 
In one case a Japanese was engaged to inspect the forests of a British possession, 
but I have not been able to find his report. 
We must not forget the large extent to which forestry was influenced by botany 
during the early years, and much of the progress made was due to the efforts of 
distinguished botanists, both British and foreign, who were quick to see the damage 
that was being done to the forests and the opportunities that still existed of conserving 
and improving the timber resources. Several excellent reports on the forests of 
India and Burma were written by botanists, and it is curious to find that some of 
these have not yet been superseded by any modern work of equal merit. Mention 
should also be made of a number of army officers who showed a special aptitude for 
preliminary forest work and oceupied important positions before the advent of trained 
forest officers. This is the place to mention two great Empire foresters, both Germans, 
Sir Dietrich Brandis and Sir William Schlich. 
A hundred years ago the old forest rules were in force more or less in Great Britain, 
Mauritius and one or two other places, but for the most part the forests were free to 
the people, like air and sunlight, and were valued as lightly. 
The Ceylon Forest Ordinance was passed in 1840, and regulations to protect 
certain forests in New Zealand were made in 1841. An old Act of 1859 in §. Africa 
is called the Forest and Herbage Act of Cape Colony. The Indian Forest Act was 
passed in 1865, marking the beginning of proper modern legislation to protect forests 
in the Empire. » 
Up to the year 1900 little progress was made in this direction in other parts of 
the Empire, but certain tentative efforts before that date were made in Cyprus, New 
Zealand, S. Africa, Great Britain, S. Australia, Ontario and elsewhere. During 
the last thirty years the development of measures of protection has been rapid. In 
almost every part of the Empire the State has made great efforts to obtain control 
of the remaining valuable forests which have been sometimes reserved, sometimes 
completely protected by an adequate staff, and sometimes controlled as regards 
felling by traders and permit-holders. 
It has been the rule, rather than the exception, for these measures to arouse 
opposition, not only from the inhabitants of neighbouring villages, who naturally 
considered their vested interests were being interfered with, but also from more 
enlightened people, officials and others, It has often happened that the forest 
