THE CENTRAL PROVINCES AND OUDH 265 
enthusiastic interest in the practice of the science. 
Thus, when the day at last arrived when the forests 
of India were mentioned in the Budget debate at 
Simla, and their statistics were quoted by a Secretary 
of State in England, it became safe to assert that 
the administration for nearly half a century of one- 
fifth of the area of British India had been carried 
out by the Forest Department to the benefit of the 
public interests, and to anticipate that the future 
progress of the work depended solely on the know- 
ledge and enthusiasm of the department, and on a 
continuance of the sympathetic consideration now 
accorded by the Government. 
