KUMARI CULTIVATION. 127 



this way the destruction of virgin forests has been brought under 

 both in Mysore and in the Mahratta country. I do not here 

 allude to the private lands of Malabar, with which I have nothing 

 to do. 



H. Cleghorn. 



(A.) T. L. Blane, Esq., Collector of Canara, to Board of 



Be VENUE. 



Slst August 1847. 



" The practice of kumari cultivation is one of so wasteful 

 and improvident a nature, that it appears to me it ought not 

 to be tolerated except iii a very wild and unpeopled country, 

 and the time seems to have arrived, when it would be most ad- 

 visable to place it under considerable check and regulation, if 

 not entirely to prohibit 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 Bajah's 

 government, and can only be said, therefore, to have been in opera- 

 tion 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 conversation on the subject, has deter- 

 mined on putting a stop to it, with a view to the preservation of 

 the woods which still remain." 



" I am not disposed at present to recommend its entire prohi- 

 bition ; but I think it would be well to do so in all places accessible 

 to the seaports whence timber and firewood could be brought 

 down, and to place it under regulation in every other part of 

 the district. The revenue paid upon this destructive kind of 

 cultivation is very trifling ; and if the wood were preserved in ac- 

 cessible spots, the duty upon the export of timber and firewood 

 would, under proper regulation, exceed it tenfold. I have par- 

 ticularly noticed the destruction which has taken place of forest on 

 the hills immediately above the fine port of the Tadri, where it 

 would have been very valuable, from its vicinity to the coast. 

 The forests which have been here felled and burned, and the 

 magnificent trees which have been left to rot on the ground, would 



