2 FIRST REPORT ON FOREST OPERATIONS 



myself to a summary of my observations on the forests generally, 

 and of the operations of the forest department during the first 

 year of its existence, mentioning the further measures con- 

 templated when it is in a state of more complete organization. 



3. In the beginning of this century, an immense almost un- 

 broken forest covered the "Western Ghats, from near the water- 

 shed to the most elevated ridges, — left to nature, thinly peopled, 

 abounding in wild animals, and all the higher portions, without 

 exception, covered with timber.* Now the passing traveller, 

 looking down from the higher peaks of Coorg or Malabar, con- 

 ceives that an inexhaustible forest lies below him ; but as he 

 descends the ghats, he finds that the best timber has been cut 

 away, and that the wood-contractor is felling in more remote 

 localities. I refer especially to teak, blackwood, and poon 

 spars, which are every year becoming more scarce in accessible 

 situations. The practice in India has been the converse of that 

 in Europe, where the soft wood is thinned out and the hard wood 

 left. Here the valuable kinds are removed and the scrub left. 

 By one of these authorities (Buchanari), the burning of jungles 

 was recommended as a sanatory measure, and to diminish the 

 number of wild animals; but circumstances have much changed. 

 Now the axe of the coffee planter and of the kumari cultivator 

 have made extensive and often wanton havoc, devastating a large 

 portion of the area of the primeval forest. The former is en- 

 couraged as endeavouring to rescue the soil for legitimate pur- 

 poses (except when the timber is peculiarly valuable) ; but the 

 squatter, who clears without leave in one year the land which he 

 abandons the next, is punished and repressed. The waste has 

 been altogether prohibited in Mysore and the Bombay collec- 

 torates, and is checked to a great extent in Canara, but has not 

 altogether ceased. The exertions of the collector and sub-col* 

 lector have, however, been very successful in keeping under the 

 destruction, called kumari, caused by vagabond tribes in burning 

 wood, with the view of raising from the ashes a crop of inferior 

 grain. 



4. In Canara, the forest rules, framed by Messrs Maltby and 



* Dr Hove's Travels, 1786. Dr F. Buchanan's Journey, 1801. Lord 

 Valentia's Travels, 1804. 



