Conservator Of Forests Research Articles

Air Surveys in Burma

The air surveys undertaken in Burma in 1924 and the beginning of the present year originated in a suggestion by Mr. C. E. Hay, of the India Forest Service, that aerial methods would be best for surveying the Delta of the Irrawaddy. The suggestion was not taken up seriously until 1920, when Mr. Watson, now Chief Conservator of Forests in Burma, and then in charge of the Delta Circle, took up the idea with persistent enthusiasm. Mr. Watson visited England later in that year and carried his negotiations during the ensuing year so far that I remember when we returned from the survey of the Orinoco Delta and demonstration in British Guiana at the end of 1921 that we fully expected to be on our way to Burma in the next few months.As a matter of fact it was not till January, 1924, that I found myself at Marseilles looking for the P. & O. liner “ Malwa ” to take me to India on the way to the Irrawaddy.

Sir William Schlich, K.C.I.E., F.R.S

THE death of Sir William Schlich, who succumbed to an attack of bronchitis on September 27, at eighty-five years of age, removes from the world of forestry one of its outstanding figures of the past half-century. A native of Hesse-Darmstadt, Schlich studied at the University of Giessen, taking his degree of Ph.D. in 1866. The same year he was offered and accepted a post in the Indian Forest Department, then in its infancy, and was posted to Burma, where he served as deputy conservator of forests until 1870, when he was transferred to Sind, where he remained for two years. In 1872 he was promoted to the conservatorship of Bengal, which in those days comprised the present provinces of Bengal, Assam, and Behar and Orissa. For seven years he threw himself with energy and conspicuous success into the arduous work of organising forest operations in this huge tract. After a spell of leave to Europe, followed by a short period of service as conservator of forests in the Punjab, he was appointed towards the end of 1881 to act as inspector-general of forests to the Government of India: he was confirmed in this appointment in 1883, when his predecessor, Dr. Brandis, retired from the service, and held it until 1885, when he proceeded to England to take up the post of professor of forestry in the newly created forestry branch at the Royal Indian Engineering College at Coopers Hill.

Current Topics and Events

WE are glad to see that noteworthy recognition is accorded to science in the New Year honours list which was issued last week. The appointment of Sir James G. Frazer and of Sir Ernest Rutherford to the Order of Merit, an order which was “designed as a special distinction for eminent men and women” and is limited to twenty-four members, will give particular pleasure to scientific workers everywhere. Included among the honours are also the following:- Knights: Prof. John Adams, Professor of Education, University of London, 1902-1922; Prof. R. H. Biffen, Professor of Agricultural Botany, Cambridge University; Mr. G. R. Clarke, Director-General, Posts and Telegraphs, India; Dr. Hari Sing Gour, Vice-Chancellor, Delhi University; Mr. W. B. Hardy, Secretary of the Royal Society; Prof. F. Gowland Hopkins, Professor of Bio-Chemistry, University of Cambridge; Principal J. C. Irvine, Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of St. Andrews; Mr. F. Truby King, Director of the Child Welfare Division of the Department of Health, Dominion of New Zealand; Dr. T. M. Legge, Senior Medical Inspector of Factories; Mr. B. Longbottom, Chairman, British Electrical and Allied Manufacturers' Association; Maj.-Gen. R. C. Macwatt, Director-General, Indian Medical Service; Mr. E. W. Petter, President, British Engineers' Association; Dr. H. J. Waring, Senior Surgeon, St. Bartholomew's Hospital, Vice-President, Royal College of Surgeons, Vice-Chancellor of the University of London, 1922-1924. C.I.E.: Mr. H. G. Billson, Chief Conservator of Forests, and Member of the Legislative Council, United Provinces, India. D.B.E. (Civil Division): Miss L. B. Aldrich-Blake, Dean of the London School of Medicine for Women.

F. B. Bryant

WE regret to record the death, on November 28, at the age of sixty-three, of Mr. Frederick Beadon Bryant, formerly Inspector-General of Forests to the Government of India. Mr. Bryant received his professional training at Nancy, joined the Indian Forest Service in 1881, and was posted to the North-West Provinces and Oudh. Some of the earlier years of his service were spent in the preparation of working plans for the important sub-Himalayan forests lying between the Ganges and the Sarda rivers. This early training, together with some years of successful executive work in his province, marked him out subsequently for the post of Assistant Inspector-General of Forests and Superintendent of Forest Working Plans, which he held for three years from 1896. After holding successively the posts of Conservator of Forests in the Punjab and Burma and Chief Conservator of Forests in Burma, he became Inspector-General of Forests to the Government of India, an, appointment which he held from 1908 till 1913, when he retired from the service of Government. Mr. Bryant succeeded to this post at an important period in the history of his department. The Forest Research Institute at Debra Dun had been established two years previously on the initiative of his predecessor, Mr. (now Sir Sainthill) Eardley-Wilmot. It fell to Mr. Bryant to guide the destinies of the Institute in its earlier years, and his handling of this task was marked by sound common sense and careful judgment. A man of cheerful personality, he made a popular chief, and enjoyed to an unusual extent the goodwill of his department. In recognition of his services to Government he was awarded the C.S.I. in I9ii. He is survived by a widow and grown-up family, to whom we extend our sympathy. He had the misfortune to lose one of his sons on active service during the war.

Note on an enquiry by the Government of India into the relation between forests and atmospheric and soil moisture in India. By M. Hill, F.L.S., C.I.E., Chief Conservator of Forests, Central Provinces. Calcutta, 1916. Forest Bulletin, No. 33. 8vo. Pp. 41, charts

Note on an enquiry by the Government of India into the relation between forests and atmospheric and soil moisture in India. By M. Hill, F.L.S., C.I.E., Chief Conservator of Forests, Central Provinces. Calcutta, 1916. Forest Bulletin, No. 33. 8vo. Pp. 41, charts

Recent Progress in Indian Forest Technology

THE excellence of the work of any public department depends on the character and ability of the men who direct it, and the Indian Forest Department was singularly fortunate in its first Inspector-General, the late Sir Dietrich Brandis, K.C.I.E., F.R.S. He secured State ownership and State management for the forests both in British India and in the native States, and also a trained staff of forest officers. He placed Indian forest law on a firm basis by selecting as Conservator of Forests, Mr. B. H. Baden-Powell, C.S.I., a member of the Punjab Civil Service, who, after working for a decade of his life in the forest service, became presiding judge of the chief court at Lahore. Baden-Powell drafted the Indian Forest Acts, models of forest law that are followed by all colonial legislators, and his “Manual of Forest Jurisprudence “is the only English book on the subject. No mere forester could have drafted those laws successfully, nor could any mere lawyer, but Baden-Powell was both lawyer and forester.

UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL INTELLIGENCE

MR. ERNEST SHEARER, Kirkwall, has been appointed lecturer on agriculture at the Pusa Imperial College, Bengal. This model agricultural college for all India, with a farm of 1300 acres attached, is one of the admirable developments resulting from the. appointment two or three years ago. of Mr. James Mollison as Inspector-General of Agriculture in India. Mr. Alexander Sangst.er, Montrose, has been appointed junior assistant with the Aboukir Land Reclamation Co., near Alexandria, Egypt, and Mr. John C. Leslie assistant conservator of forests in southern Nigeria.

FORESTRY IN RHODESIA, EXTRACTS FROM A REPORT TO THE RHODES TRUSTEES

[Note by Editor.-In the will of the late Cecil J. Rhodes, provision was made, and a sum of money was set aside for the planting of trees in the Matopo Hills, and in a more general way for the conservation and extension of forests in Rhodesia (South Central Africa). Mr. Hutchins, the Conservator of Forests in Cape Colony, has been permitted to report on this interesting subject of the afforestation of Rhodesia to the Rhodes trustees, and the African Society has been enabled to publish the following extracts from Mr. Hutchins's reports. The importance of Tree-growing in South Central and Southern Africa cannot be over-estimated in connection with the increasing drought and sterility which follows the disappearance of the forests.]

The Management and Protection of Forests1

I.PROF. SCHLICH'S important work is approaching completion. The two first volumes were noticed in December 1889 and July 1891.2 Of these, it is understood, a new edition will soon be necessary. The third volume, which deals with forest management, is about to appear in a Spanish translation. Vol. iv. is an English adaptation of an excellent German book on forest protection, by Dr. Richard Hess, Professor of Forestry at the University of Giessen. It is the work of Mr. Fisher, formerly Conservator of Forests and Director of the Imperial Forest School at Dèhra Dùn in North-Western India. The last volume will deal with forest utilisation. In the present article, we propose to deal with the subjects of the third and fourth volumes, viz. the management and the protection of forests.

The Management and Protection of Forests1

I.PROF. SCHLICH'S important work is approaching completion. The two first volumes were noticed in December 1889 and July 1891.2 Of these, it is understood, a new edition will soon be necessary. The third volume, which deals with forest management, is about to appear in a Spanish translation. Vol. iv. is an English adaptation of an excellent German book on forest protection, by Dr. Richard Hess, Professor of Forestry at the University of Giessen. It is the work of Mr. Fisher, formerly Conservator of Forests and Director of the Imperial Forest School at Dèhra Dùn in North-Western India. The last volume will deal with forest utilisation. In the present article, we propose to deal with the subjects of the third and fourth volumes, viz. the management and the protection of forests.

The Forest Flora of New Zealand

MR. EDWARD BARTLEY states1 that only four kinds of New Zealand timber are used in Auckland for building purposes, and that these are: kauri (Dammara australis), rimu (Dacrydium cupressinum), totara (Podocarpus totara), and kahikatea (Podocarpus dacrydioides); but Mr. Kirk's “Forest Flora” goes far beyond the timber-yielding element of the New Zealand forests. It illustrates and describes nearly the whole of the shrubby and arboreous plants of New Zealand, and gives very full particulars of their dimensions, qualities, uses, distribution, and propagation. It is by no means a mere compilation; and, although the author acknowledges various sources of information, a slight examination of the work is sufficient to convince us that it is very largely based upon personal observation, and that the details are elaborated with great care. The Forest Flora of New Zealand. By T. Kirk, late Chief Conservator of State Forests to the Government of New Zealand, c George Didsbury, Government Printer, 1889.)

Handbook to the Ferns of British India, Ceylon, and the Malay Peninsula

FOR something like the last thirty years Col. Beddome has made a special study of Indian ferns under very favourable circumstances. Holding as he did till about a year ago the post of Chief Resident Conservator of the forests of the Madras presidency, he was brought into daily contact with them in his official work, and at his home at Ootacamund he formed a large collection of them under cultivation, many of which have never reached England in a living state. About 1860 he commenced his well known series of illustrations of Indian ferns, in continuation of Wight's “Icones,” in which the ferns had been entirely neglected. His plates, like Wight's, were in quarto, uncoloured, and were mainly executed by native artists. His “Ferns of Southern India and Ceylon” contains plates of 271 species and varieties, and was issued in parts and finished in 1863. His “Ferns of British India,” which was devoted to the species not found in the southern presidency, contains 345 plates and was finished in 1868. In 1876 he published a supplementary part, containing 45 additional plates, thus raising the total number to 660, and a revised general catalogue and summary of genera and species. Now he has retired from his official position and come home to England, and the present work is the firstfruits of his leisure. It contains in a handy form a full description of all the Indian genera and species, and is illustrated by 300 uncoloured plates, reduced by means of photography from those of his larger books, one full page plate, with analytical details being given for each of the ninety-eight genera he adopts, and the others of smaller size interspersed amongst the letterpress. It is the first special book of portable size and moderate price which has been devoted to Indian ferns, and is in every way deserving of the extensive circulation it is sure to obtain. Handbook to the Ferns of British India, Ceylon, and the Malay Peninsula. By Col. R. H. Beddome, late Conservator of Forests, Madras. Large 8vo, 500 Pages, with 300 Illustrations. (Calcutta: Thacker and Spink; London: W. Thacker and Co., 1883.)

ART. IV.—Abstract of Reports on the Cultivation of Imphee in the Bombay Presidency, for the Year 1860

Reports on the experimental cultivation of imphee in 1860 having been received from nearly all the Collectorates of Bombay, and having perused them with much interest, the Conservator of Forests has the honour to make the following observations.