FORESTING AND DEFORESTING IN CEYLON.

Otago Witness, Issue 1190, 19 September 1874, Page 6

FORESTING AND DEFORESTING IN CEYLON.

(From the Cei/luii Oh-scrvcr, June 19. )

The Madras Standard brings us so excellent and interesting a summary of the Report on the Forest Department of the Madras Presidency for 1872-3, that we cannot help longing for the period, when similar reports from the recently instituted department in Ceylon will present us with facts something more than the rechauffe of oft-dissipated fallacies to which we are treated by authorities who, if their opinions carried weight, ought to render permanent the temporary suspension of the sales by Government of mountain forest lands. The lands now blocked out are mainly in the districts of Dimboola, Dickoya, and Maskeliya, and they run from 2500 to 5000 feet above sea level up the sides of mountain ranges, the forested summits of which are from 1000 to 2500 feet still loftier. Even if there were not a stick of timber higher than a coffee, tea, or cinchona shrub on the tops of mountains from 4000 to 8000 feet high, the monsoon rains would burst all the same, the rain-fall would be equally copious. All experience and all observation in Ceylon tend to prove that the deforesting of high lands, or rather the substitution of coffee bushes of four feet high for forest trees of forty or sixty on such lands, has not the slightest effect in diminishing rainfall. When the common sense arguments are used that from such lands the rains run more rapidly off, or that the moisture from the surface is more rapidly dissipated, we listen with respect. There can be no doubt also that the planters who clear away every tree from their land are inflicting a double injury on their own interests and those of the country. Let us by all means reserve the tops of the mountain ranges, so that all the rain may not run off at once, and also that a store of vegetable deposit may be preserved for the gradual enrichment of the lower lands. Limited reserves of forest land considerably under the summits of the great ranges will also be useful for timber and fuel purposes, but let us hear no more of such reserves, or the entire stopjjage of the sales of mountain forests being necessary to secure Ceylon her share of the mountain rains. Whenever, in Ceylon, correct records of rainfall have been kept, it has been found that, with the greatest possible variations in months and years, a certain average is sure to be arrived at by taking the result of any five years, adding the figures and dividing by five. The process of denudation has been the largest and longest continued around Kandy, and yet it can be proved that the average rain-fall has not diminished a decimal of an inch since Sir Edward Barnes had the forest cleared from Gangaruwa, to make room for coffee. We trust, therefore, the present suspension of sales of Crown land does not mean the adoption of the extreme views so popular in some quarters, but that the common sense and moderate policy announced by Mr Gregory will be persevered in. The time will come when the owners of private lands will find it to their interest to grow trees good for timber, for fruit, and for fuel, and we hope that amongst other ai.d larger benefits derived from the establishment of a Forest Department will be that of supplying information regarding the best kinds to plant, and the best modes of sowing, planting pruning, tfce., at various altitudes and in various climates. Ceylon is celebrated for its ebony, its satin-wood, and many other trees suited for cabinet work. The island is rich, too, in good timbers, whether cultivated, like the palmirah, or growing spontaneously, like the hahnilile, &c. But there is no reason that we know of why teak and blflckwoocl, and even sandal-wood should not bo added to our forest treamres ; and we trust the re3ult of the labours, experiments, and suggestions of the Forest Conservators will be to add to our indigenous wealth of timber trees much of the best specimens from other lands — India, Australia, China, and Japan, and the various countries of Europe. For the trees of temperate climes there are vast expanses of patena and chena lands in our mountain system, while an enormous extent of low scrub lands is available for strictly tropical trees. Even lands which have been subjected to the wasteful "chenaing" process cau in i mwy mm he turned to good owpimt '<

in this direction, and perhaps it would not be a bad plan to offer to the natives, in addition to the proportion of chena which follows a certain acreage of rice land kept in cultivation, an additional area proportioned to the number of timber and fuel trees they may succeed in rearing up to a certain age. The details have to be worked out, but there can be no doubt that while Ceylon presents a fine field for the growth of such economic products as coffee, tea, and cinchona, it also affords ample and favourable scope for the application of the principles and practice of the art of forestry. To any one who has travelled in Germany, and seen how every waste spot, and every uncultivated corner, and every roadside are utilised for the growth of useful trees, we need not dwell on the contrast which Ceylon presents, and the improvement for which there is room. Owing probably in a large measure to the unnecessary stringency of the rule which forbids Government servants to write to the papers, the public has heard little or nothing of the proceedings of the Conservators of Forests since they were appointed and drafted to their respective province?. But their functions and operations so closely resemble those of the director and superintendent of the gardens Peradeniya and Hakgalla, that we trust an exception similar to that made in regard to Mr Thwaite's annual report will be extended in the case to those which the Conservators have made to the Government agents or to the Government direct, and that they will be supplied to the Press as soon as printed. We feel quite certain that the members of the Legislative Council will be the last to object, the first to approve of a course which will place them equally with the public promptly in the possession of information, which we take it for granted will be interesting and useful. Our own firm belief is that there is a great and profitable future for welldirected, systematic, intelligent forestry in Ceylon.