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10. So far as any immediate advantage is to be sought from the extension of forest in respect to protection against drought, it will, in our opinion, be mainly in the direction of the judicious inclosure and protection of tracts ... from which improved and more certain pasture may be secured for the cattle of the vicinity, a supply of firewood secured which may lead to a more general utilisation of animal manure for agriculture, and a possible addition made to the power of the subsoil to retain its moisture, and to the prospect of maintaining the supply of water in the wells. . . . As to the protection of the higher hill-slopes from denudation, it may confidently be stated that they will, in any case, be more useful if kept clothed with wood than subjected to the wasteful and destructive process by which they are brought under partial and temporary cultivation, and that, whether the expectation of an improved water supply as a consequence of such protection is fully realised or not, there is on other grounds sufficient reason for arranging for the conservation of such tracts where it is practicable.

In the main portion of the Commission's report, however, no reference whatever was made to forests, and the Forest Department is not even mentioned in that part of it (par. 120) which urges the co-operation of all departments

arising in relation to direct measures of relief.'

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Further light was thrown on this most important subject when Dr. J. A. Voelcker, consulting chemist to the Royal Agricultural Society, was sent out in 1892 to study and advise on agricultural matters, and embodied his opinions in a Report on the Improvement of Indian Agriculture, 1893. In the chapters dealing with 'Climate' and 'Wood' he made very valuable observations concerning the relation between agriculture and forests; and he gave proper appreciation to the work of the Forest Department, which was even then still accursed in the eyes of many district officers. With regard to woodlands he said

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I would point out that their real influence and value consist in their lowering the temperature, and thus causing moisture to be deposited where it would otherwise pass on. . . . Thus, a given quantity of rain will be distributed greater number of days, and its value to the agriculturist will be thereby largely increased. . . . Though immense tracts of country have been denuded in the past there are still considerable areas which can be taken up and rendered serviceable for climatic ends, and the Forest Department has stepped in none too early in the endeavour to save those wooded tracts which are still left. From climatic considerations alone the work of the Forest Department is, accordingly, of importance. . . .

180. Having instanced sufficiently the need of more firewood for agricultural purposes, I must now express my concurrence with the views that have been expressed both by Governments and by individuals, that the way in which the supply of wood to agriculture can be best increased is by the creation of new enclosures for the purpose of growing wood, scrub jungle, and grass. Such enclosures are now denominated 'Fuel and Fodder Reserves.'

182. The question was often asked by me, why the Forest Department has not created more Fuel and Fodder Reserves' . . . Undoubtedly progress is hampered by an insufficient staff, but I consider this important question must not be longer delayed.

197. Such reserves' should be primarily adapted to serve agricultural ends.

There is a considerable amount of land which might be taken up for this purpose, in others land must be purchased. The results must not be gauged by financial considerations alone, but by the benefits conferred on the agricultural population, the keeping up of the soil's fertility, and the maintaining of the Land Revenue to the State. Enquiry is needed in order to ascertain exactly what the requirements of each district are in respect of fuel, &c., and how these may be met. Continued encouragement should be given to the spread of Arboriculture. The Forest Department is certainly undermanned, and the present financial check placed upon its further development in an agricultural direction should be removed.

The first-fruits of Dr. Voelcker's report appeared in a Government of India resolution in October 1894, when it was formally declared that the sole object with which State forests are administered is the public benefit'; and this has been the policy adopted since then. Very soon thereafter a striking example of the direct utility of forests in providing edible roots and fruits and fuel for the relief of the labouring poor, and of the advantages obtainable in granting them free collection of grass for their starving cattle, occurred in 1894 during serious scarcity in parts of the Central Provinces. Nothing that was done for the relief of the people,' the resolution thereon stated, 'is said to have been more appreciated than the concession made in this respect.'

The first severe test to which the Famine Codes were put came in 1896. In the Bundelkhand district of the United Provinces the summer rainfall of 1895 was scanty and the winter rains failed, and relief works were begun early in 1896. The monsoon of 1896 was also weak, and famine soon spread over between a quarter and one-third of all India. The whole of Central India was famine-stricken, together with parts of Madras, Bombay, the Punjab, Bengal, and Upper Burma, the afflicted areas aggregating about 307,000 square miles with a total population of 69,500,000, of whom 4,000,000 had to be given relief whilst the famine was at its height. Never before had famine relief operations been so extensive. Over 820,000,000 units received relief, at a cost of nearly 6,000,000l., besides large remissions of revenue and loans afterwards made for the purchase of plough cattle. But in British districts alone the famine mortality was about 750,000 before the autumn harvest of 1897 ended the general distress, which was followed by an exceptionally heavy death-rate from fever and other epidemic diseases always following in the wake of famine.

As soon as this great distress was ended a second Famine Commission, of which Sir James Lyall was president, was appointed on the 23rd of December 1897, to examine and compare the various systems of relief adopted locally and the results attained, and 'to make any enquiries and record any recommendations or opinions which it is thought will prove useful in the case of future famines.' Under the Provincial Famine Codes special arrangements had been made for the withdrawal of restrictions tending to exclude persons in distress from the full benefits of the natural products of the Reserve Forests or waste lands containing an important supply of edible produce

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and also for the protection of cattle, when the pasture was about to fail, by sending them to the nearest Reserves that could be opened and by supplying them with fodder and water on the way there. The' only direct mention made of the forests in this Commission's report, dated the 20th of October 1898, is with regard to Bombay, where—

141. The operations undertaken by the Forest Department, with the object of supplying the distressed districts with grass, cut and compressed in the more favoured parts of the presidency, constituted an important departure from the prescriptions of the local famine code, which are confined to measures for throwing open the forests for free grazing and the collection of edible products. Effect was given to these measures both in the distressed tracts and in adjoining districts. But in the distressed areas the drought affected equally the forests, and the agriculturists refused to send their cattle to distant forests. The fodder operations involved a net loss . . . . but it is claimed that many valuable cattle have thereby been kept alive, and that the results of the experiment will be of great use in future droughts.

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Similar evidence had just before then been published in the Madras Relief Fund Committee's report for 1897 (vol. ii. p. 373).

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The solution which promised the best hopes of success ... consisted in throwing open to free grazing all the forests in the Ceded districts . . . [i.e. of the Deccan, where the cattle numbered about three million, and where the forest area exceeded 3,810,000 acres, much of which was, owing to its altitude, exempt from the parched condition of the plains and lower hills] . . . The proposal was ... to induce the ryots to club their cattle into herds under appointed drovers, who should take the cattle into the reserves under the supervision of Revenue inspectors, and keep them there till better times came. This plan was in accordance with old native custom, and is believed to be by far the best. Under a sky of brass a wind like scorching fire was sweeping over the Deccan, and the fate of its cattle-all but the large stall-fed bullocks of the richer ryots-depended upon the promptitude with which the herds were rescued. . . The second requisite was the opening of every forest reserve for free grazing. These reserves cover an area . . . capable of carrying a million head of cattle. . . All the ordinary herds could be driven to these reserves. . . . The reserves were at last all opened towards the end of May. And nearly 700,000 head of cattle benefited thereby.1

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Hardly had the Commission reported, however, before another and even a more widespread and serious famine broke out. Beginning in Ajmer in 1898, it spread all around in 1899, affecting an area of 475,000 square miles and a population of 59,500,000, of whom 6,500,000 were receiving relief in July 1900, while the total number of units relieved exceeded 1140 millions. It was at once the most widespread and the most terrible famine that had ever occurred in India, and over 7,000,000l. were spent in Government relief measures.

To inquire into this a third Famine Commission was appointed on the 20th of December 1900, with Sir Antony MacDonnell as president. So far as forests were concerned, its report, dated the 8th of May 1901, drew serious attention to the exceptionally high mortality of far over four million cattle which had been a marked feature of this famine.

1 Madras Famine Report, 1898, vol. i. p. 37.

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205. The great mortality of cattle in the recent famine has pushed to the front the question of their preservation in times of drought and dearth of fodder. Such fodder famines are fortunately rare. In an ordinary famine, when the crops fail at a late stage of their growth, there usually remain sufficient straw and grass to save, at any rate, the useful cattle; but the recent famine has been abnormal in this respect. It is estimated that nearly two million cattle, local and immigrant combined, died in the Central Provinces and its Feudatory States, and that an equal number died in Bombay. The mortality was also great in Berar and in Ajmer, in which latter district no effective measures were taken to prevent it. In their efforts to save their cattle the Gujarat agriculturists expended all their savings, themselves enduring great privations; they sold their jewels and even the doors and rafters of their houses, we are told, in order to purchase fodder. Their efforts failed, their cattle died, and with their cattle all their accumulated wealth disappeared, so that Gujarat became a stricken field. 206. . . . In the Central Provinces, where the conditions were very favourable to success, well considered and sustained action was taken by the authorities. The free cutting of grass was allowed; the means of watering were provided, as far as possible; forests were thrown wholly open to grazing; and grass was given away in large quantities. The province had, in fact, as a whole, more than sufficient fodder for its requirements, and exported large quantities both of grass and jawȧri straw. And yet the cattle died in immense numbers.

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207. . . . In Bombay relief measures were conducted on a scale hitherto unknown but the conditions were such . . . that no efforts achieve more than a partial success.

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Regarding the deportation of cattle to the forests this Commission did not think it advisable to put pressure on the people, as in Gujarat and Berar large numbers of stall-fed cattle thus deported had died on the way, while the coarseness of the grass, the change of water, or, again, the scantiness and insufficiency of the water-supply, as well as the neglect of the hirelings in charge, are fatal to carefully reared and stall-fed beasts.' But, they added: 216. We think, nevertheless, that the forests should be opened to all who are prepared to take the risks.'

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In the second Famine Commission's report of 1898 there was one very ominous sentence (par. 404): Viewed as a whole we consider that . . . the areas over which intense and severe distress prevailed in the famine of 1896-97 were greater than in any previous famines.' And yet the next famine, immediately thereafter, was still more widespread and distressing. Now, this very sad and serious state of affairs is hardly to be wondered at. Ever-widening areas of scarcity must become the rule, unless far more is done than has ever yet been attempted to afforest all waste lands and the poorest classes of agricultural soil, and to plant and manage them solely for the benefit of the surrounding agricultural population and their plough-cattle.

During the fifty years previous to the assumption of government by the Crown there were four famines and four periods of scarcity; and during these last fifty years since then there have been twelve great famines, including the two most extensive and disastrous that have ever occurred, and six periods of serious scarcity. Indeed,

within the last ten years there have been three great famines, and serious scarcity has now become almost an annual occurrence in some part or another; while the famine of 1907-8, that has for over a year been blighting Upper and Central India, has already proved of long duration and great extent. Now, there can be no doubt that the previously existing relations between woodlands and waste junglecovered tracts on the one hand, and cleared agricultural land on the other, have been greatly disturbed and entirely altered during the last sixty years since the Court of Directors' despatch was sent out in 1847. Whatever beneficial effects extensive wooded or shrub-covered areas can possibly exert on the temperature and the relative humidity of the air, and on the temperature and the amount of moisture retainable within the soil, the sum total of such benefits must necessarily have become greatly diminished through the vast clearances made for permanent and temporary cultivation under British rule during many years of peaceful occupation and of rapidly increasing population, railway development, and trade. During the last fifty years under Crown government the agricultural situation in high-lying tracts has, despite the benefits of extensive irrigation in tracts lying lower than where the great river-courses can be tapped, become aggravated by an increase in population certainly exceeding 60,000,000 and probably amounting to 80 or 100,000,000 souls, and by correspondingly vast clearances of lands formerly covered with trees or shrubs; and these clearances for cultivation must inevitably have simultaneously decreased the capacity of the soil for retaining moisture and increased the actual aridity of both the soil and the atmosphere. So far, therefore, as any sort of opinion is justifiable in default of a careful scientific enquiry it may be presumed that these extensive clearances of woodlands and the pressure of a population of 300,000,000 now requiring to be supported must inevitably have tended both to induce and to prolong the now more frequently recurring periods of scarcity, and also to increase the danger of scarcity becoming famine. Although the Reserved and Protected Forests amount to nearly per cent. of the total area of India, yet the percentage of their distribution varies enormously (Burma 75, Assam 45, Central Provinces and Berar 21, Madras 131, Bombay 12, Bengal and Punjab 9, United Provinces 4, Baluchistan and North-West Frontier 2); and this means that in the hottest and driest parts and in the most densely populated provinces, where woodlands and scrub jungles would afford the

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greatest benefits to agriculturists and their cattle, the forests now exist only in an inverse proportion to the need for them.

I have before touched incidentally on this matter in an article on 'The Forests of India' (see this Review, February 1907), but I would here plead for more attention, a more specialised scientific and especially botanical enquiry, and more money being devoted both to the consideration of and also to actual experiments connected with the

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