THE LEASE SYSTEM. 123 



export trade, especially if the forest population is. a very poor one 

 and dependent for its livelihood chiefly on the wood-cutter's craft. 



Section III. — The Lease System. 



In this system the lessee purchases the right to utilize and re- 

 move, during the term of the lease, as much of the specified classes 

 of trees or produce as he has the time and ability to take out. 

 Before any beginning was made in forest conservancy, certain 

 forests were leased out for every article it produced, and even at 

 the present day impecunious private proprietors, and indeed also 

 rajahs, give out their forests on such terms. It is evident that a 

 lease of this wholesale kind means the rapid extermination of the 

 forestj and that the system itself is adapted only for the removal of 

 inferior material from forests on which there is only an insignifi- 

 cant demand. Indeed, the lease system in any form is justifiable 

 only when it is adopted to encourage the beginning of a trade in 

 wood. Hence it is peculiarly suitable for clearing out of forests, 

 that cannot otherwise be worked, the few trees that die and fall 

 naturally every year. In the case of a large accumulation of dead 

 material, the system would be justified only in the absence of a keen 

 competition to obtain this material. Under any other circumstances 

 the lessee would always be tempted to try to pass off green for dead 

 wood, and, if he could afford to wait, to kill a number of valuable 

 living trees, which he would extract after they were dead. As the 

 number of trees that die each year from natural causes is, under 

 normal conditions, comparatively insignificant, the forest should be 

 divided into blocks, each block being leased in turn only at the end 

 of a period long enough to allow of a sufficient accumulation of 

 dead wood to attract purchasers and thus command remunerative 

 prices. 



The forests of the Saharanpur Division of the School Circle, 

 containing, as they do, a very inferior stock, are a good illustration 

 of the successful application of the lease system, but the interval 

 during which each block has rest would perhaps with advantage 

 be extended. 



The weakest point in the lease system is that, as the lessee pays 

 down a fixed lump sum, it is his interest to remove as much pro- 

 duce as he can, and he is, therefore, under constant strong tempta- 

 tion to take out also what he has no title to. The lease system is 

 totally unsuited for the working of bamboo forest, as no amount 

 of precaution will prevent over-cutting in individual clumps. 



The lease money may be recovered in one instalment before the 



