Reviews and Notices of Books. 287. 
minated from the want of judicious conservancy. The Indian 
government ultimately saw the importance of taking some steps 
in the matter, and they have most wisely appointed conservators 
in the different presidencies, whose duty it is to see that the trees 
are properly felled, and that the supply of timber is kept up by 
regular planting. Dr Cleghorn, who is the conservator in the 
Madras Presidency, and who is well known as an able botanist, 
has given in the volume now before us a full report of the forest 
operations under his control, and he has produced a work of great 
value, which ought to be in the hands of every one who takes an 
interest in forest cultivation, and in developing the resources of 
our Indian possessions. The following remarks, taken from the 
preface of the work, show what was required in the forest depart- 
ment in India :— 
“Tt is only of late years that attention has been drawn to the 
importance of conserving tropical forests. The necessity of or- 
ganising a system, whereby it would be possible to control the 
clearing of indigenous forests, did not at first present itself, espe- 
eially as advancing civilisation and an increasing population appa- 
rently indicated an opposite course of procedure. The question, 
when viewed simply in its physical relations, and the propriety of 
clearing forest lands in order to enlarge the area of food-producing 
soil, pointed perhaps as much to extensive clearance as to vigilant 
conservancy. It is a fact, however, that moderate and prudent 
clearing is quite compatible with the maintenance of a profitable 
system of superintendence. The matter of complaint was, that 
throughout the Indian empire large and valuable forest tracts were 
exposed to the careless rapacity of the native population, and 
especially unscrupulous contractors and traders, who cut and 
cleared them without reference to ultimate results, and who did 
so, moreover, without being in any way under the control or regu- 
lation of authority, The results of this wholesale and indiscri- 
minate denudation gradually became apparent, and rendered it 
imperative that measures should be taken to organise a system of 
forest administration, which would enable the authorities to eco- 
nomise public property for the public good. 
«The subject was brought before the attention of the British 
Association for the Advancement of Science, which met at Edin- 
burgh in 1850; and a committee of their number was appointed 
to consider the question, and report upon it. The matter was 
duly investigated, and the results of the committee’s deliberations 
were laid before the Association at the ensuing meeting held at. 
Ipswich in 1851. In the course of this inquiry, it was ascer- 
tained that neither the Government nor the community at large 
were deriving from the Indian forests those advantages which 
they were calculated to afford. Not only was there a most 
wasteful and uncalled-for destruction of useful material, but nu- 
