282 Forestry Quarterly 



very little. The staflf consists of one ranger, one deputy ranger 

 and four of a subordinate grade, known as foresters, together 

 with about 70 coolies — all natives. The total cost of this estab- 

 lishment, together with a proportion of the Divisional Forest 

 Office charges amount to about $1700 per year. 



The total cost of the plantation up to 1909, allowing inter- 

 est compounded annually at 4 per cent was $224,000. Even 

 though there were extensive early failures, though thinnings 

 have not been practised, and the possibility of the plantation each 

 year has not been realized through failure to cut over sufficient 

 area each year, the surplus each year over actual expenditure 

 now realizes 4.67 per cent on the invested capital represented at 

 1909. 



Under more intensive management, with such cheap labor, 

 rapid timber production and an excellent market, the profit would 

 undoubtedly be much greater. The failure to obtain better re- 

 sults in the past appears to have been due in large measure to the 

 fact that the plantation has been under the supervision of native 

 district forest officers, who although trained as foresters, as a 

 rule neither exhibit the initiative nor exercise the care necessary 

 to make the most of an irrigated plantation. The failure to have 

 experimented with thinnings is probably due to this cause. 



The Punjab Government is preparing to embark extensively on 

 plantations, partly as a means of investing each year the surplus 

 of Government revenue above expenditure and partly to meet 

 the pressing demand for fuel and workwood. An area of 60,000 

 acres of irrigated plantations is contemplated, on the greater 

 part of which a start has now been made. 



