44 



sufficient here to give a few extracts from the letter,* addressed by 

 the Secretary of State for the Colonies, to the Secretary of State 

 for India, requesting the services of a few Forestry Officers with 

 Indian training and experience, and in which the various proposals 

 took a more definite form. The final result was the amalgamation 

 of the Botanical and Forestry Departments of the two Colonies, 

 Lagos and Southern Nigeria, under one head. 



It may be mentioned that it was not considered possible at this 

 period for any effective action to be taken in the same scheme 

 with regard to Northern Nigeria. 



In the course of the communication referred to it was stated 

 that '* The Director of the Royal Gardens at Kew, who is the 

 regular adviser of this Department in such matters, is strongly of 

 opinion that in order to secure the economical and efficient 

 working of the valuable rubber and timber forests which exist in 

 West Africa, the methods of forest administration which are so 

 successfully used in India should be applied to them, and. it is 

 desired to organize a Forest Department in Southern Nigeria for 

 this purpose. Sir W. T. Thiselton-Dyer and Sir R. Moor have been 

 in semi-official communication on the subject with Mr. H. C. Hill, 

 the Conservator-General of Forests in India, and it is understood 

 that Mr. Hill has been good enough to express his willingness to 

 select the officers required." 



" The duties of the Department, so far as it is possible to detail 

 them at present, would be as follows : — 



" (a) The conservation of the forests in the Protectorate and 

 the prospecting of the forest areas with a view to 

 ascertaining the value of vegetable economic products. 



"(//) The protection of all trees and plants affording known 

 economic products, and the exploitation of such as 

 may afford economic products now unknown. 



"(c*) The supervision of concessions that may be granted for 

 the exploitation of vegetable economic products. 



"(d) The creation of Government reservations and the 



planting of them. 

 " (e) The reafforesting of exhausted areas. 

 "(/) The preparation of the scheme of legislation necessary 



to deal with the forests generally, and particularly 



such trees and plants as are known to afford economic 



products. 

 " (g) The management and care of existing Botanic Stations 



and experimental planting therein with a view to 



the introduction of further economic trees and plants. 



(There are plantations of coffee at these stations 



amounting in all to about 100,000 trees now bearing.) 

 "(h) Improvement in the methods of extracting and 



obtaining vegetable products and preparing them for 



market. 

 " (i) The training of the native staff for forestry and botanical 



w T ork, and the general instruction of apprentices. 



* Colonial Office, Sept. 21st, 1901. See Botanical Enterprise in W. Africa, 

 1889-1901, p. 306. 



