August 5. 1896.] 



Garden and Forest. 



319 



of the various trees which constitute the forest. These young 

 plants grow very slowly, waiting until one of the old giants 

 falls, when they push up rapidly toward the light and even- 

 tually fill up the gap. Scattered here and there, huge speci- 

 mens of Antiaris toxicaria raise their round massive heads 

 to a height of 250 feet from the ground. 



What I should like better still would be to invite the reader 

 to leave behind the hot forests of Teak and Dipterocarpus 

 of the Sitang valley, and to ascend with me the hills east of 

 Toungoo, passing through fields and gardens of prosperous 

 Christian Karen villagers, among whom, shortly before I came 

 to Burma, drunkenness, idleness and deadly feuds were the 

 order of the day, and where the work of American mission- 

 aries and their faithful Karen assistants have introduced order, 

 industry and sobriety. Here the crests and slopes of the 

 higher hills are occupied by extensive evergreen forests, 

 partly Pinus Khasya, often with an underwood of Cycas 

 pectinata ; partly, a great variety of Oaks, Chestnuts, Magnolia 

 and other trees, the underwood consisting of species of Rho- 

 dodendron and large shrubs of Vaccinium, all in full flower, 

 with the curious Fern, Brainea insignis, and tufts here and there 

 of large-flowered Cypripedium. 



Such an account of the Burma forests might possibly please 

 the readers of Garden and Forest ; but, unfortunately, 

 Forestry is not Botany, it is hard and dry business, and more- 

 over it is business of a peculiarly difficult and intricate char- 

 acter. 



PLANS FORMED. 



In January, 1856, I took charge of the Teak forests of Pegu. 

 Teak forests they are called, but the Teak-tree only forms a 

 small proportion of the forest. In most cases trees form the 

 upper story of the wood, while the lower story consists 

 of a dense mass of Bamboos, from thirty to sixty feet high. The 

 constitution of these forests has of late years been carefully 

 examined in a large number of districts, and it has been found 

 that the proportion of Teak to other trees, not counting Bam- 

 boos, as a rule varies between ten and twenty per cent. 

 Taking the Bamboos into account, it may be said that Teak 

 hardly ever forms more, and, as a rule, much less than ten 

 per cent, of the entire growing stock. A remarkable fact 

 should here be noticed. On the island of Java the Teak, there 

 called Djati, forms pure forests of considerable extent, in 

 which very few other trees are found. In Burma, in Siam 

 and in the western peninsula of India, the Teak, unless 

 planted, forms pure woods only under exceptional circum- 

 stances, here and there, on deep alluvial soil in valleys or in 

 the plains. 



The chief aims, which I had proposed to myself in 1856, 

 were threefold : (1) To protect and, as far as possible, to improve 

 the forests, to arrange the cuttings so as to keep well within 

 the productive powers of the forests and to ensure a perma- 

 nent and sustained yield from them. (2) To make the inhabit- 

 ants of the forests and the people in the vicinity my friends 

 and allies. (3) As soon as possible to produce an annual 

 surplus revenue. 



The province of Pegu had been annexed to the British 

 Indian Empire in December, 1852, in consequence of a war 

 which the then King of Burma had provoked. Lord Dalhousie, 

 at that time Governor-General of India, was a real statesman. 

 Rangoon, the capital oE Pegu, had long been known as an im- 

 portant place for the export of Teak timber, and Lord Dal- 

 housie had determined that this source of wealth should not 

 be wasted but should be preserved. I landed in Calcutta in 

 December, 1855, and fortunately at once found opportunities 

 for obtaining information regarding the state of things in Pegu, 

 and for framing a general plan of action. The outlines of this 

 plan I had the honor of submitting to His Excellency. Lord 

 Dalhousie listened with great attention, and when I had con- 

 cluded, he said : " Dr. Brandis, if you succeed in carrying out 

 these excellent plans, you will confer a lasting benefit upon 

 the people of Pegu. I hope you may succeed, and you will 

 have my full support in the matter. I hold it to be the duty 

 of the Government of India to preserve the forest resources of 

 Pegu and not to allow them to be wasted as the forest re- 

 sources of other provinces have been wasted. Unfortunately 

 I must leave India soon, but I trust that my successors will 

 take the same view as myself of the Pegu forests. Should it, 

 however, thus happen that at any time the Government of 

 India were not fully alive to the necessity of preserving the 

 forest resources of' Pegu, I hope that you will remember what 

 I have told you." 



Lord Dalhousie left India in March, 1856, and died in 1S60. 

 Those who may have the patience to follow me through the 

 history of forest management in Pegu will see that had it not 



been for Lord Dalhousie s words the whole undertaking would 

 most probably have come to nothing. And there was another 

 point : Lord Dalhousie had selected the very best man for the 

 government of the newly acquired province, Major (after- 

 ward Sir Arthur) Phayre. Through the wisdom and deter- 

 mination of that great and good man, Pegu was speedily 

 converted from one of the most unruly and wild countries 

 into a flourishing and well-peopled country. What the popu- 

 lation of Pegu was at the time of annexation is not known. In 

 1856 it amounted to 700,000, and in 1S81 to 2,500,000. 



Under the orders, and with the unchanging cordial support 

 of Major Phayre, I gradually put my plans into execution. A 

 few days after landingat Rangoon I selected a large area, with 

 one and a quarter miles of river frontage, above the town, 

 where I established a timber depot for the collection and sale 

 of the timber to be brought down from the forests. At that 

 time Rangoon was a small place and the land then made over 

 to me for forest purposes was of little value; it is worth 

 several millions now. 



At annexation the Teak forests had, by proclamation, been 

 declared the property of the state, and this was in accordance 

 with established custom, for under the King of Burma Teak 

 had been a royalty, all Teak-trees were the property of the 

 King, and Teak timber was a monopoly. So far the position 

 of the Government was safe on paper. But I knew that some- 

 thing more was wanted, and that the most effective plan fur 

 acquiring full control of the forests would be to keep all oper- 

 ations in the forests in my own hands, to bring out the timber 

 on Government account, and to sell it at Rangoon by public 

 auction. This plan I hoped would enable me to give the in- 

 habitants of the forests and the people who had hitherto done 

 the work of dragging and floating the timber profitable and 

 steady employment, and thus would make them my friends 

 and allies. 

 Bjnn, Germany. Dietrich Brandis. 



Recent Publications. 



Seventh An 11 it. il Report of the Missouri Botanical Garden. 

 Published by the Board of Trustees, St. Louis, Missouri. 



The Missouri Botanical Garden now contains 301 named 

 species of trees, 561 named species of shrubs and 1,129 

 named species of hardy herbaceous perennial plants. The 

 herbarium includes nearly 250,000 specimens, being fairly 

 representative of the vegetable life of Europe and the 

 United States, with many specimens from less accessible 

 regions. In a circular printed last May and reprinted in 

 this volume, Dr. Trelease called attention to this material 

 for the study of botany, and adds that every facility will 

 be given to advanced students who wish to make re- 

 searches in botany and the cognate sciences. The her- 

 barium is especially rich in certain named groups which 

 have been monographed by the late Dr. Engelmann and 

 others, and it is supplemented by a large collection of 

 woods. The library contains some 8,000 volumes, 10,000 

 pamphlets, and this report includes a carefully prepared 

 catalogue of the pre-Linnean library which was presented 

 to the garden by Dr. E. Lewis Sturtevant, of South Fram- 

 ingham, Massachusetts, and consists of nearly 500 selected 

 botanical works which were published before the 

 time of Linnaeus. We are glad to learn that these 

 rapidly accumulating facilities invite more investi- 

 gators every year. It is gratifying also to know ilia 

 receipts from the magnificent endowment we :i last 



year thau ever. Besides the catalogue of the pre-Linnean 

 library, this report contains a stud)' of the I ece of 



the United States, by Dr. Trelease, with full- 



page plates, a study of the Agaves of the United Slates, by 

 Miss A. Isabel Mulford, with thirty-eight plates, and a 

 monograph on the ligulate Wolffias of the United Si. 

 by C. H. Thompson. Some of the reproductions of photo- 

 graphs are excellent examples of what can be done by 

 process work. There are many others which show with 

 equal clearness that no process can make a good picture 

 out of a bad photograph. In works of permanent va 

 therefore, where photograph) is employed, perfection in 

 detail is essential, and this can only be assured when a lens 

 of the best quality is used by a skilled operator. 



