SARTAGE. 87. 
‘The natural condition of the country could not have: 
called forth or exercised upon the people an effect more to 
be deplored. 
‘The peasantry bere look upon wood as being in common 
with earth and air, fire and water, one of the elements, and 
as equally free to all persons ; and they consequently con- 
sider that they are free to use it without stint or limit, as 
one of the free gifts of nature. This state of things, origi- 
nating, as I have intimated, from the physical condition of 
the country, can only be changed or destroyed by the great 
change-producer, time ; and the reports of the consequent 
destruction of the forests embrace numerous details of the 
extension in the country of the practice of Sartage and 
Roeden, or Svedja. This system of felling is very frequently 
met with; but if we enter into the circumstances of the 
case, considering, on the one hand, the condition of 
the agricultural economy of the people, together with 
the paucity of labourers and the lack of manures, and 
the circumstances that the temporary culture of the fields 
which is thus effected supplies the only means of support 
to man, and, on the other hand, the great extent of the 
forests and the difficulty of maintaining an efficient watch 
over them by wardens or forest watchmen with a great 
extent of forest entrusted to their care, we cannot con- 
demn the Forest Administration for not adopting effect- 
ual measures to prevent altogether this unauthorised 
felling of trees in the forest. 
‘ This unauthorised felling is the primary form taken by 
agriculture—the first step taken towards the development 
of rural economy. We hope in process of time to get 
beyond this; but to put it down by force would not be 
a rational course of procedure. The Northern peasant 
not having productive ground near his residence, nor 
means to improve it if he had, goes into the depths of the 
forest, burns down trees, and cultures his temporary field 
for two or three years, or so long as its powers of fertile 
production is not exhausted—the fertility being produced 
by the ashes and cinders of the burnt trees. The persua- 
