“ SARTAGE” IN INDIA. %5 
and unpeopled country; and the time seems to have 
arrived when it would be most advisable to place it under 
considerable check and regulation, if not entirely to pro- 
hibit it. This latter course, I must observe, the authorities 
in Mysore have, only within this last year, thought it 
necessary to adopt. It was never permitted under the 
Rajah’s government, and can only be said, therefore, to 
have been in operation for twelve or fifteen years at most; 
yet so rapidly has it increased, that the superintendent of 
the Nuggur division, with whom I have had much con- 
versation on the subject, has determined on putting a stop 
to it, with a view to the preservation of the woods which 
still remain. 
‘Iam not disposed at present to recommend its entire 
prohibition ; but I think it would be well to do so in all 
places accessible to the sea-ports, where timber and fire- 
wood could be brought down, and to place it under regu- 
lation in every other part of the district. The revenue 
paid on this destructive kind of cultivation is very trifling, 
and if the wood were preserved in accessible spots, the 
duty upon the export of timber and firewood would, under 
proper regulation, exceed it ten-fold. I have particularly 
noticed the destruction which has taken place of forest on 
the hills above the fine-port of the Tadri, where it would 
have been very valuable, from its vicinity to the coast. 
The forests which have here been felled and burned, and 
the magnificent trees which have been left to rot on the 
ground, would have supplied the market of Bombay with 
firewood for years. The same fact has been noticed by 
Mr Forbes, my head-assistant. 
‘I have referred. above to the manner in which the 
practice of Koomaree cultivation has increased of late 
years. It was formerly confined entirely to the race of 
wild and uncivilised people who dwelt habitually in the 
jungles ; but others have since taken it up, and many of 
the ryots from the plains, and others who have come from 
the Mysore and Mahratta country, have adopted it as a 
means of livelihood. There is little doubt, also, that the 
