310 FOREST LIFE AND SPORT IN INDIA 
Even now there are less than 1,000 square miles 
of reserved forest in the island, though some 3,000 
more are under consideration for reservation; and 
this is obviously too small a proportion of the total 
area in a land where the habits of the people and 
the interests of the planting community both tend 
to encourage the denudation of the soil, with the 
results that have already been touched upon else- 
where. Already a prohibition of forest clearances 
above the 5,000-feet line has been issued, but this, 
though a good beginning, is not sufficient to guard 
against possible danger to the garden and field 
cultivation of the island. More stringent regula- 
tions for the protection of both public and private 
lands (as is done in France and Switzerland) are 
required, and more attention is necessary to re- 
stocking the areas left blank by shifting cultivation. 
From a forester’s point of view, a tour in Ceylon 
is interesting in enabling some idea to be formed of 
what these forests were like in the days before they 
were recklessly destroyed, and of what they might 
be like should forestry be fostered by the Govern- 
ment in the future. In such circumstances the 
ridges would again be well wooded, and the catch- 
ment areas would again be filled with valuable 
timber trees; while perennial streams would run 
clear to the sea, instead of, as now, forming muddy 
torrents that intermittently convey thousands upon 
thousands of tons of valuable soil yearly into the 
ocean. Tea, rubber, cocoa, citronelles, etc., are the 
valuable products of Ceylon at the present time, as 
coffee and cinchona were in the past. The two latter 
have disappeared, perhaps aided by too intensive 
