Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/418

 404 FORESTS operation under an administrator-general of forests. There are three forest zones characterized by the pine, the ever green oak, and the deciduous oak. Pinus Pinaster abounds on the coast, giving place south of Lisbon to P. Pinea, the stone pine. The largest forest is that of Leiria, composed chiefly of the maritime pine, Pinus Pinaster; and adjoining the forest are establishments for the preparation of tar and resin, and the impregnation of wood. AsiA, 1 India. The forests of British India are of great extent and value. Under the rule of Hindu and Mahometan princes, as well as in the earlier years of British domina tion, the forests were recklessly injured by felling, or by the recurrence of destructive fires, thereby deteriorating the climate and impoverishing the people. But conserv ancy has been introduced in time to preserve many of the advantages they are calculated to afford, to make them a considerable source of revenue to the state, and to provide for the needs of future generations. The change from un controlled waste to careful state supervision is necessarily slow : immemorial usages have to be overcome, and many obstructions to be removed, before the department is in good working order ; great progress has, however, been made. The forest department is now a branch of the public service, for which candidates are annually selected by the Secretary of State for India. Attention was first directed to conservation in India by the appointment of a committee by the British Association in Edin burgh in 1850, to consider the &quot;probable effects, in an economical and physical point of view, of the destruction of tropical forests ; &quot; and a report was printed in 1851, showing the importance of pre serving every influence which tends to maintain an equilibrium of temperature and humidity, of preventing the waste of valuable material, and the special application to their various uses of the indigenous timbers of the country. Indian botanists, to their credit, had long urged on the Government the necessity of stopping the waste of valuable timber. Advancing civilization, the progress of agriculture, and the rapid extension of railways soon rendered it imperative that means should be taken to organize a general system of forest administration, to control the clearing of indigenous forests, and to economize public property for the public good. About 1855 the first attempts at organization were made, the executive arrange ments being left to the local administrations. In Bombay, Burmah, and Madras, conservators were appointed who started as it were single-handed and without skilled assistance, depending on such help as could be found in the local services. After the mutiny of 1857 a staff of five or six assistants was sanctioned in each of these provinces, the more valuable forests were mapped out, and exact information was obtained regarding their resources. In 1862 the Government of India organized a departmental system of conserv ancy for the whole empire, and the office of inspector general of forests was created. A Forest Act, No. 4 of 1864, gave power to local administrations to demarcate the limits of state forests, and to reserve certain trees for state purposes, and notified the mode of procedure in cases of damage, conflagration, &c.; and in October 1877 the report of a select committee on a bill to amend the law relating to the preservation of state forests was under the con sideration of the Indian Government. Many of the forest officers first appointed were chosen because of local knowledge and love for natural history rather than their knowledge of practical forestry, but with these extended operations the want of trained assistants soon became apparent. It was therefore determined to train young men specially for the work, and as forestry is in France a branch of Government service, advantage is taken of the forest school at Nancy in France, and five or six youths, after having passed through the usual course of study there, both theoretical and prac tical, are annually sent to India. In 1876 the officers of the higher grades had increased to 147, 1 inspector general, 10 conservators of provinces, 136 deputies and assistants. The post of inspector general is held by Dr Dietrich Brandis, to whose energy and ex perience is in great measure due the success which has attended the progress of the department. Many large and valuable tracts of forest arc in the territories of na tive chiefs ; and to prevent these being wholly destroyed, the British Government leases them for a long term of years, paying an annual 1 A very comprehensive view of the geographic botany of the Asiatic continent and the distribution of its flora will be found in the article ASIA. rent, or a seignorage on each tree felled. Throughout the empire the forest lands are burdened with grazing and other village rights, and it has required much tact to effect the formation of forest reserves to their present extent. As opportunity offers, unreserved forests are added to the reserves. The following figures embrace all the provinces under the Government of India&quot; (excluding Madras and Bombay). In 1875-6 the area of reserved and leased forests was 15,089 square miles, being an increase of 3000 square miles during the year. The aggregate area of plantations is about 26,000 acres, and the trees cultivated in the different provinces are as follows : Bengal Toon and Teak. North West Provinces.. ..Deodar, Walnut, and Horse-chestnut. 1 unjab Deodar, Sissu, Kikar, Her, and Mulberry. Burmah Teak. Assam Caoutchouc. Madras Teak, Red Snderswood, Casuai ina, Eucalyptus. Coorg and Mysore Teak and Sandal-vood. Berar Teak and Babool. Oudh Sal. The most important articles of export are teak, sandahvood, cutch, caoutchouc, and lac, the last chiefly from the Central Pro vinces. In 1875-6 the following amounts were exported from India : Tons. Prices per Ton. Caoutchouc 763 1282 rupees. Shell-lac, 4,032 1613 Lac-dye 533 500 Sandahvood.... 500 500 Cutch (Catechu: 9,762 173 Myrobalans 14,317 74 Teak (50 cubic feet) 60,656 73 The export of teak commenced about 1829, after the annexation of Tenasserim, and at first it was only from British territory. In 1835 teak began to come from beyond the frontier in largely in creasing quantities. After the annexation of Pegu forest operations in British territory were regulated, and the average export to Indian and foreign ports from 1856 to 1862 was 20,000 tons, four times that amount coming from beyond the frontier. Nearly two-thirds of tho teak goes to Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay, and the rest to Britain. The finest teak plantation is the Conolly plantation in Malabar on the Beypur River (Madras Presidency), where the rainfall is 150 inches annually. It now covers about 4000 acres, and 100 acres are added every year. The result has been most satisfactory, in the provision of an immense stock of valuable material, and the outlay incurred is being gradually recouped. Cutch, the extract of the heartwood of Acacia Catechu, comes chiefly from Burmah, partly from Mysore and Malabar. It is used for tanning and dyeing. Lac is chiefly produced in Central India ; the collection is expensive, but the quantity may be still further increased. JButca frondosa and Schleichcra trijuya are the chief lac-yielding trees. Caoutchouc, the produce of Ficus elastica, is col lected in Assam and Sikkim, and latterly also 111 Burmah, where, however, the tree is not indigenous. Most of the sandalwood of commerce (Santalum album) is from Mysore and Coorg, and is ex ported from Bombay. In Mysore more than half of the forest revenue is derived from this tree. The surplus forest revenue from the different provinces for 1875-6 was as follows : The Presidency of Bengal 22,86,840 rupees. Madras ...(deficiency 3,724) Bombay 4,70,195 27,53,311 Native States Administered. Mysore 15,257 rupees. Berar 1,41,943 Total 29,10,511 rupees, or 291,051. Much expenditure is needful for improving the roads through the forests, and for the blasting of rocks in rivers, which, both in the plains and in the Himalaya, are much used for floating logs. Fuel plantations on a large scale, especially in Madras and the Punjab, have been formed for the supply of railways and steamboats ; the demarcation of forests is steadily carried on, the reserves are mapped, and laws are in force for the exclusion of cattle from the reserves and for the prevention of fires ; waste has been prohibited, and in many ways a gradual improvement is taking place. New species of trees of rapid growth are being acclimatized. &quot; From Australia several kinds of Eucalyptus and Acacia were introduced about twenty-five years ago, and they have made such progress that the station of Ootacamund is now almost surrounded by a forest of these trees. Their rate of growth is wonderfully fast, much faster than that of the indigenous trees. Young forests of the quinine-yielding Cinchonas are coming lip in many places. The management of these cinchona woods will probably be similar to the treatment of oak coppice in England ; for though oak bark has not one-twentieth the value of Jesuit s bark, it is the bark in both cases for which these woods are mainly cultivated. There will, however, be the difference that while oak coppice in Europe, after having been cut over, requires from fourteen to twenty years to yield another crop of bark, cinchonas grow so rapidly that they may probably be cut