¹ In his 1810 study of Purnea District, Buchanan describes a belt of woods/forest running along the entire terai area of North Bihar: ‘There are, however, a few forests that apparently are in a perfect state of uncultivated nature. In the north-east corner of the district there is one which forms a small part of a large woody tract that extends into the district of Tirahut. The most common tree is Sal (Shorea robusta);, but it contains a variety of others. The trees have been of late gradually diminishing in size, and few are now to be found fit for any other use than for small posts and the common implements of agriculture; but within these thirty years it contained many trees fit for the crooked timber of ships, and a good deal has been sent to Calcutta for this purpose. Along the frontier of Bahadurgaunj and Udhrail with Morang are several similar small woods; but they contain more Palas … and Simal … than Sal.’ Buchanan, Francis, An Account of the District of Purnea in 1809–10 (Patna, 1928), pp. 304–5.Google Scholar

² Richards, J. F., Olson, Jerry, and Rotty, Ralph M., Development of a Data Base for Carbon Dioxide Releases Resulting from Conversion of Land to Agricultural Uses, ORAU/IEA-82–10(M) (Oak Ridge, 1983), pp. A-41–42.Google Scholar

³ See Richards, J. F. and McAlpin, Michelle B., ‘Cotton Cultivating and Land Clearing in the Bombay Deccan and Karnatak: 1818–1920,’ in Tucker, Richard P. and Richards, J. F. (eds), Global Deforestation and the Nineteenth-Century World Economy (Durham, 1983). pp. 68–94Google Scholar, for an illustration of this point for the Deccan.

⁴ See Clark, William C. (ed.), Carbon Dioxide Review (New Nork, 1982), pp. 12–13Google Scholar, for a discussion of the use of historical data on land use. This volume also provides a useful, comprehensive view of the entire carbon dioxide research effort and associated issues.

⁵ Olson, J. S., Watts, J. A., and Allison, L. J., Carbon in Line Vegetation of Major World Ecosystems, ORNL-5862 (Oak Ridge, 1983).Google Scholar

⁶ The aims and intentions of most scholars have, in fact, led them away from such examinations. Kessinger's, Even Tom excellent Vilayatpur 1848–1968: Social and Economic Change in a North Indian Village (Berkeley, 1974)Google Scholar gives little attention to the process and results of the conversion of land to agriculture. One notable exception is Farmer's, B. H.Agricultural Colonization in India Since Independence (London, 1974)Google Scholar; in his second chapter, Farmer presents a useful review of the processes of human assault on wastelands and of the viability of the category ‘culturable waste.’

⁷ The unit used to indicate this decline, however, has usually not included the six districts of Chotanagpur. When Chotanagpur is excluded, our data indicate a 3 percent decline in arable for North and South Bihar. See Blyn, George, Agricultural Trends in India, 1890–1947 (London, 1966), pp. 138–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sivasubramoniam, S., ‘National Income of India, 1900–01 to 1946–47,’ unpublished Ph.D. dissertation (Delhi School of Economics, 1965).Google Scholar See, most recently, Khan, Akbar Ali, Some Aspects of Peasant Behaviour in Bengal, 1890–1914, A Neo-Classical Analysis (Dhaka, 1982), p. 19.Google Scholar Also, see Mufakharul, M. Islam, Bengal Agriculture, 1920–1946: A Quantitative Study (London, 1978), pp. 49–83.Google Scholar

⁸ See Geddes, Arthur, ‘The Regions of Bengal,’ Geography (09 1929), pp. 186–98Google Scholar; Ganguly, Birendra N., Trends of Agriculture and Population in the Ganges Valley (London, 1938), pp. 227–8Google Scholar; Blyn, , Agricultural Trends in India, p. 140.Google Scholar

⁹ See Ray, Rajat K., ‘The Crisis of Bengal Agriculture, 1890–1927: The Dynamics of Immobility,’ Indian Economic and Social History Review X (09 1973), pp. 244–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ganguly, , Trends of Agriculture and Population in the Ganges Valley, p. 228.Google Scholar

¹⁰ See Government of India, Report of the Royal Commission on Agriculture in India (Calcutta, 1928), p. 79Google Scholar; also see Khan, , Some Aspects of Peasant Behaviour in Bengal, p. 39.Google Scholar

¹¹ For an examination of the close association of demographic trends and the sequence of arable extension, see Hagen, James R., ‘Indigenous Society, The Political Economy, and Colonial Education in Patna District: A History of Social Change from 1811 to 1951 in Gangetic North India,’ unpublished Ph.D. dissertation (University of Virginia, 1981), pp. 288–317.Google Scholar Also, see Boserup, Ester, The Conditions of Agricultural Growth (London, 1965), pp. 115–21Google Scholar; Grigg, David, Population Growth and Agrarian Change: An Historical Perspective (London, 1980), p. 31.Google Scholar

¹² Buchanan, , An Account of the District of Purnea, pp. 176–8.Google Scholar

¹³ See Hagen, , ‘Indigenous Society,’ pp. 315–18.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Our research team has begun this analysis in cooperation with Richard P. Tucker.

¹⁵ This has, of course, been done with careful attention to the extensive and continuing debate and discussion over South Asian regional boundaries. We have reached our divisions with an eye to the preceding discussions (too extensive to cite here), but without a conscious adherence to the boundaries of any one point of view. Singh's, JasbirAn Agricultural Atlas of India: A Geographical Analysis (Kurukushetra, 1974)Google Scholar, and An Agricultural Atlas of Haryana (Kurukushetra, 1976)Google Scholar, have been particularly useful.

¹⁶ As the full time series is presently available for only eleven of the twenty districts for the entire 1850–1970 period, only districts for which data are available have been included in these calculations. Data are available for all districts for the 1880–1970 persiod. As is discussed elsewhere, those districts for which data are available from 1850 are portions of ‘British India,’ while the other areas are, for the most part, princely states. Detailed figures for all districts by major land use category are provided in Appendix 2.

¹⁷ On this, see [Kessinger, Tom G.], ‘Regional Economy (1757–1857): North India,’ in The Cambridge Economic History of India, vol. 2, c. 1757–1970, ed. Kumar, Dharma (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 242–70.Google Scholar Other valuable sources include Banga, Indu, Agrarian System of the Sikhs (Delhi, 1978)Google Scholar; Thornburn, S. S., The Punjab in Peace and War (London, 1904)Google Scholar; Calvert, H., The Health and Welfare of the Punjab (Lahore, 1922)Google Scholar; and Hall, Charles J. Jr.,. ‘The Maharaja's Account Books: State and Society Under the Sikhs, 1799–1848: A Case Study of Pargana Gujrat,’ unpublished paper presented to the Twelfth Annual Conference on South Asia (Madison, Wisconsin, November 1983).Google Scholar

¹⁸ These terms are discussed earlier in this paper.

¹⁹ See Davidson, H., Revised Settlement of the District of Ludhiana in the Cis-Sutlej States (Lahore, 1859), pp. 9–10.Google Scholar

²⁰ See Tucker, Richard P., ‘The British Colonial System and the Forests of the Western Himalayas, 1815–1914,’ in Tucker, and Richards, (eds), Global Deforestation, pp. 158–61 and 201 n. 39Google Scholar; and [Hurd, John M.], ‘Railways,’ in The Cambridge Economic History of India, 2:749.Google Scholar See also Sanyal, Nalinaksha, Development of Indian Railways (Calcutta, 1930)Google Scholar; Westwood, J. N., Railways of India (London, 1974)Google Scholar; and Satow, Michael and Desmond, Ray, Railways of the Raj (New York and London, 1980).Google Scholar

²¹ Despite what may be some exaggeration here, this is an important observation, one that underlines also some of the pre-railway demands for ‘transportation wood,’ particularly Indus steamboat traffic. See Andrew, W. P., The Indus and Its Provinces, Their Political and Commercial Importance Considered in Connexion with Improved Means of Communication (London, 1857), p. 171.Google Scholar

²² This trend is particularly evident in the (1970) union territories of Delhi and Chandigarh, where major urban growth has had a severe impact on land use in the territories and their surrounding districts.

²³ The most important work is that by Hurd, John II, ‘Some Economic Characteristics of the Princely States of India, 1901–1931,’ unpublished Ph.D. dissertation (University of Pennsylvania, 1969)Google Scholar, ‘The Economic Consequences of Indirect Rule in India,’ Indian Economic and Social History Review XII (04–06 1975), pp. 169–81Google Scholar, and ‘The Influence of British Policy on the Industrial Development in the Princely States of India,’ Indian Economic and Social History Review XII (10–12 1975), pp. 409–24.Google Scholar Hurd's articles should be read in conjunction with Simmons, C. P. and Satyanarayana, B. R., ‘The Economic Consequences of Indirect Rule in India: A Re-appraisal,” Indian Economic and Social History Review XVI (04–06 1979), pp. 185–206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Haynes, Edward S., ‘Comparative Industrial Development in 19th- and 20th-century India: Alwar State and Gurgaon District,’ South Asia n.s. III (12 1980, pr. 1982) pp. 25–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The best survey of the Punjab states and the resources for their study has been provided by Ramusack, Barbara, ‘The Princely States of the Punjab: A Bibliographic Essay,’ in Eric, W.Gustafson, and Jones, Kenneth W. (eds), Sources on Punjab History (Delhi, 1975), pp. 374–449Google Scholar; see also [India, Foreign Department], Memoranda on Native States in India, 1912 (Calcutta, 1912), pp. 277–300.Google Scholar

²⁴ Of the thirty-four states (eleven ‘Salute States’) that maintained relations with the Punjab provincial government (1912), seven are included in the area here understudy: Patiala (portions of Bhatinda, Sangrur, Patiala, Jind, and Mahendragarh districts), Faridkot (Bhatinda District), Jind (Jind and Mahendragarh districts), Kapurthala (Kapurthala District), (which still reflects the dispersed nature of the old state), Nabha (Bhatinda, Patiala, and Mahendragarh districts), Maler Kotla (Sangrur District), and Loharu (Mahendragarh District). Major Punjab states excluded from the current area of study include Bahawalpur, Bilaspur, Chamba, Mandi, Sirmur, and Suket.

²⁵ And we have (quite consciously) avoided the tasks—tangential to our present study—of detailing cropping trends and estimating yield.

²⁶ On these suggestions, see Hall, ‘The Maharaja's Account Books,’ and Edward S. Haynes, ‘Changing Land Use and Land-Use Ethic in the Rajasthan, 1850–1980,’ unpublished paper presented to the Thirteenth Annual Conference on South Asia (Madison, Wisconsin, November 1984).

²⁷ See the forthcoming study, ‘Swords and Trees: The Role of Vegetal Concealment in Local Political Control Systems of Gangetic India,’ by co-author James R. Hagen, which considers the historical role of woods and forest as tools and symbols of local political control.

²⁸ On these and other significant trends in the Punjabi utilization of woodlands, see Deogun, P. N., ‘Punjab and Colonization,’ Indian Forester LXVIII (02 1942), pp. 74–81.Google Scholar