FIEEWOOD Or NILGIEI HILLS. 



Letter to Secretary to Government, E. D. 



Utakamand, 8th Nov. 1859, No. 836. 



I have had the honour of receiving Procs. of Government, Eev. 



Dep., 26th Sept., No. 1300, referring for report a letter (15th 



Sept.) of the collector of Coimbatore, regarding the " urgent 



necessity" of conserving the forests and fuel of the Nilgiri Hills. 



2. The subject has engaged my attention for a long period ; 

 but it is attended with great practical difficulties. There can be 

 no doubt that the forests in the vicinity of the hill stations have 

 greatly suffered of late years ; but private planting, at least at 

 Utakamand, is largely on the increase. I have no doubt that, 

 in the course of the next ten years, the wants of the community, 

 so far as fuel is concerned, will be in great measure supplied from 

 private plantations. The great object in the meantime is to 

 prevent the Government woods being destroyed. 



3. The conservation of these is necessary to preserve the water- 

 springs, for shelter, &c. ; and I may here add, that so long as 

 persons can cut ad libitum in Government forests without pay- 

 ment, the most powerful incentive to private planting is lost. 



4. It is difficult to say exactly what the requirements of the 

 Utakamand community may be. There are at present 7420 

 houses (European, 273 ; native, 7147),* and I suppose about 

 4000 fires are daily burning during great part of the year. For 

 six or seven years past the main supply has been brought from 

 the westward ; and on the side of the road to Pykara, about 

 twenty sholas (large and small) have been very much thinned 

 out. 



* " The population consists of — Europeans, 2500 ; natives, 34,500 ; East 

 Indians, 500. Every European house has three or four fires daily." — E. B. 

 Thomas, Collector. 



