264 FOREST LIFE AND SPORT IN INDIA’ 
associated with members of the Council of India, 
such as Sir Denzil Ibbetson, Sir Lewis Tupper, Sir 
John Hewitt, and the Hon. Mr. Miller; with Secre- 
taries to Government, such as Sir James Wilson and 
Mr. Carlyle—all men of influence who recognized 
the value of State forestry in India, and appreciated 
the good work. that had been accomplished during 
the last half-century, and who therefore were glad 
of the opportunity afforded by the then favourable 
financial conditions of the country to further the 
interests of forestry in the present, and to equip it 
for yet more useful work in the future. 
It is needless to say that a change had come over 
public opinion in the matter of State forestry since 
the time of my early service, so much so that the 
description already given of the official attitude of 
those days would be hardly credible in these. Now 
the question was being more accurately judged by 
the Indian educated classes, and even the peasantry 
understood the direction in which their interests 
lay ; while the Indian Press took a living interest 
in the aims of forestry, in its management, in its 
present and prospective value to the Empire, and 
did not hesitate to criticize and give advice when 
in its opinion matters were proceeding too slowly. 
Almost every native State and Principality also had 
its own forest service, and managed its forests on 
principles either prescribed or approved of by 
Western foresters ; the large landowners were rapidly 
following suit, convinced of the importance of forests 
under business-like management ; while the revenue 
officials had not only accepted the policy laid down 
for their guidance, but numbers of them took an 
