Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/777

753 AGRICULTURE,] INDIA 753 the operations in Afghanistan in 1879-80. Government maintains about fifty donkey stallions, of which four were imported from Spain, twenty- eight from Arabia, and twelve from Bokhara. Some of the mules bred reach the height of 15 hands. The catching of elephants is now a Government monopoly or under Government supervision, except in Malabar and Travancore where the old proprie tors retain the right. The chief source of supply is the north-east frontier, especially the range of hills running between the valleys of the Brahmaputra and the Barak (see ante, p. 742). Sheep and goats are commonly reared in Sheep the wilder parts of the country for the sake of their wool. and Both their weight for the butcher and their yield of wool goats&amp;gt; are exceedingly low. In Mysore, and with considerable success at the Saidapet farm, attempts have been made to improve the breed of sheep by crossing with merino rams. Pigs of great size and most repulsive appearance are reared, and eaten by the lowest of out-castes. of Approximate Numbers of Agricultural Stock awl Implements in some Indian Provinces in 1877-1878. Madras Bombay and Siud. Punjab. Central Provinces. British Burmah. Mysore. Berar. Bullocks 3,500,000 3,000,000 ], 332, 000 21,500 18,000 128,000 45 604 4,600,000 2,700,000 250,000 284,000 2,023,000 3,300,000 2,380,000 1,630,000 90,000 380,000 1,080,000 [6,570,000 ( 85,000 1 52,000 290,000 170,000 3,850,000 98, 000 1,747,000 5,200,000 12,000 82,000 22,000 7 641,000 132,000 286,000 764,000 662,000 1,324 20,000 102,000 194,000 293,000 2,300,000 4,900 14,000 37,000 1,590,000 32,000 83,000 558,000 1,400,000 6,500 26,000 17,000 386,000 2,700 89,000 115,000 Cows Buffaloes Horses Ponies Donkeys Camels Elephants Sheep Goats Pi&amp;lt; S Carts Ploughs
 * 150,000
 * 3,300,000
 * 714,000
 * 5,800

The forests of India, both as a source of natural wealth and as a department of the administration, are beginning to receive their proper share of attention. Up to a re cent date the destruction of forests by timber cutters, by charcoal burners, and above all by nomadic cultivation, was allowed to go on everywhere unchecked. The ex tension of cultivation was considered as the chief care of Government, and no regard was paid to the impro vident waste going on on all sides. But as the pressure of population on the soil became more dense, and the con struction of railways increased the demand for fuel, the question of forest conservation forced itself into notice. It was recognized that the inheritance of future generations was being recklessly sacrificed to satisfy the immoderate desire for profit. And at the same time the importance of forests as affecting the general meteorology of a country was being learned from bitter experience in Europe. On many grounds, therefore, it became necessary to preserve what remained of the forests in India, and to repair the mischief of previous neglect even at considerable expense. In 1844 and 1847 the subject was actively taken up by the Governments of Bombay and Madras. In 1864 Dr Brandis was appointed inspector-general of forests to the Government of India, and in the following year an act of the legislature was passed (No. VII. of 18G5). The regular training of candidates for the Forest Department in the schools of France and Germany dates from 1867. In the short interval that has since elapsed, sound principles of forest administration have been gradually extended. In discriminate timber-cutting has been prohibited, the burning of the jungle by the hill tribes has been confined within bounds, large areas have been surveyed and demar cated, plantations have been laid out, and, generally, forest conservation has become a reality. From the point of view of administration, the forests are classi fied as &quot;reserved&quot; or &quot;open.&quot; The reserved forests are those under the immediate control of officers of the Forest Department ; they are managed as the property of the state, with a single eye to conservancy and their future development as a source of national wealth. Their limits are demarcated after survey, nomadic culti vation by the hill tribes is prohibited, cattle are excluded from grazing, destructive creepers are cut down, and the hewing of tim ber, if permitted at all, is placed under stringent regulations. The open forests are less carefully guarded ; but in them also certain kinds of timber-trees are preserved. A third class of forest lands consists of plantations, on which large sums of money are spent annually. It is impossible to present in a single view the entire result of the labours of the Forest Department. In 1872-73 the total area of reserved forests in India was estimated at more than 6,000,000 acres; and the area has probably beeu doubled since that date. In the same year the total forest revenue was 477,000, as compared with an expenditure of 295,000, thus showing a sur plus of 182,000. By 1877-78 the revenue had increased to 664,102, of which 160,308 was derived from British Burmah, and 126,163 from Bombay. The forest exports in that year in cludedteak, valued at 406,652; lac and lac-dye, 362,008; caoutchouc, 89,381 ; and gums, 183,685. But no figures that can be given exhibit adequately the labour and the benefits of the Forest Department, which is gradually winning back for the country the fee-simple of her forest wealth, when it was on the point of being squandered beyond possibility of redemption. The practice of nomadic cultivation by the hill tribes Nomadic may conveniently be described in connexion with forest cultivation, conservation, of which it is the most formidable enemy. In all the great virgin forests of India, in Arakan, on the north-east frontier of Assam and Chittagong, throughout the Central Provinces, and along the line of the Western Ghats, the aboriginal tribes raise their crops of rice, cotton, &c., in this manner. A similar system has been found to prevail in Madagascar ; and indeed, from its simplicity and its appropriateness it may fairly be called the most primitive mode of agriculture known to the human race. Known as tounyya in Burmah, jum on the north-east fron tier, dahya in Central India, kit in the Himalayas, and kumdri in the Western Ghats, it is practised, without any material differences, by tribes of the most diverse origin. Its essential features are the burning down of a patch of forest, and sowing the crop with little or no tillage on the clearing thus formed. The tribes of the western coast break up the cleared soil with a sort of hoe-pick and spade or even with the plough ; in other parts the soil is merely scratched with a knife, or the seed is scattered on its sur face without any cultivation at all. In some cases a crop, is taken off the same clearing for two or even three years in succession, but more usually the tribe moves off every year to a fresh field of operations. To these nomad culti vators the words rhetorically used by Tacitus of the primi tive Germans are strictly applicable Arva per annos mutant ; et superest ager. The wanton destruction thus wrought in the forests is simply incalculable. In addition to the timber-trees deliberately burned down to clear the soil, the fire thus started not unfrequently runs wild through the forest, and devastates many square miles. Wherever timber has any value from the proximity of a market, the first care of the Forest Department is to pro-