170 FOREST LIFE AND SPORT IN INDIA 
proper removal of the mature timber, but also so 
that the registers whereby the future fellings were 
checked might be correctly and honestly maintained. 
At the present time this work has been proved to 
be beyond the strength of the European staff, and 
is entrusted to provincial officers and subordinates 
under the supervision of the superior officers, and 
these, no doubt, carry it out with equal efficiency. . 
The area that has been treated by “ girdling” is 
two years later leased out to timber trading firms, 
who fell and remove the dead trees in the manner 
they deem most suitable. It will be seen that there 
is here opportunity for fraud in arranging for 
“ girdlings” outside those registered by the Forest 
Officer, and advantage has sometimes been taken of 
this opening, and of the difficulty of checking the 
removal of the girdled trees, especially when the 
subordinate staff was poorly paid, and when a dis- 
tasteful mode of livelihood debarred any but the 
most needy from entering the service. But in the 
present day more reliance on the contracting firms 
is justified, for these replenish their staff by well- 
educated youths of good social status selected in 
England, and the forester finds that he is assisted 
rather than hindered in his work by the presence of 
contractors’ employees in his forest. Of the Burma 
timber firms, the Bombay-Burma Trading Corpora- 
tion takes the first place, in virtue of the magnitude 
of the interests involved, and in the extent of the 
country worked over in Burma, India, and Siam ; 
and a young man joining this corporation, and bring- 
ing with him health and energy, should have a 
prosperous career before him. I was much helped 
