PREFACE. VII 



vancy. At first, they were thrown open to private enter- 

 prise ; but the keen competition which ensued among 

 European and native traders led to an indiscriminate 

 felling of the most valuable timber, which threatened 

 speedily to exhaust the forests, and thereby to deprive 

 the State of those supplies which were indispensable to 

 the public service. The unrestrained liberty accorded 

 to any individual to appropriate to himself, under most 

 liberal conditions, the unoccupied forests, contributed, in 

 the first instance, to the prosperity of Moulmein ; but a 

 continuance of the same system tended to the extermina- 

 tion of the finest teak, thereby depriving the State, in a 

 large measure, of a principal source of commercial pros- 

 perity. 



The somewhat chequered history of these provinces, 

 and the difficulties experienced in blending the interests 

 of the State with those of private enterprise on the one 

 hand, and in maintaining a supply of first-class timber 

 without seriously or permanently interfering with the 

 future prospects of the forests on the other, exercised an 

 important influence on the question of forest administra- 

 tion, both in Madras and Bombay. The earliest reports 

 published are those of Dr Wallich, the first of which was 

 dtoted so far back as 1827, and refers to the Salween 

 Forest, north of Moulmein. The result of his labours 

 may be said to have laid the foundation of a system of 

 conservancy, without which it would soon have become 

 impossible to maintain even the existence of our most 

 valuable Eastern forests. It is true that the rules laid 

 down by him proved to be of too stringent a character to 

 be practicable, and were constructed principally to meet 



