REPORT ON THE FORESTS OF INDIA. 219 



the growing forest is to a large extent being choked in the embraces 

 of giant creepers. 



Felling is for the most part carried on without any regard to 

 the permanence of the supply, and sometimes prudently so. We 

 may have a forest region carrying say twenty thousand fully- 

 matured trees, and no other trees in the region which will reach 

 maturity within fifty years. In these circumstances it would be 

 prudent to fell only at the rate of four hundred trees a year, were 

 it not that, on applying the axe, we find that decay is already 

 beginning to show itself. In such case it would be wiser to 

 utilise the timber while still sound, if it can be worked out at a 

 profit. The sal goes on increasing in girth while it decays at the 

 heart ; but I know but of one case in which a forest officer suc- 

 ceeded in getting a forest of old hollow trees worked upon. Speak- 

 ing within my own experience, wherever sal forests are situated 

 near a market, the present rate of felling is in excess of the capaci- 

 ties of the forest to maintain permanently, but as long as the de- 

 partment postpones valuation surveys, there is always room to hoj^e 

 that the standing stock is in excess of the estimates of croakers. 



The teak, as I remarked above, is not of gregarious habits, but 

 seeks the companionship of other trees, and, although it is drawn 

 from a large area, the yearly exportation is so lai'ge as to leave 

 abundant room for the inference, that the drain is excessive, the 

 more especially that, even in the reserved forests of British 

 Burmah, it has not been thought advisable to suppress the firing 

 of the forests by the wandering cultivators. 



To sum up, the unreserved forests are every year perceptibly 

 decreasing in area, and the standing stock on the reduced area as 

 perceptibly diminishing, while from the reserved forests the deodar 

 is fast disappearing, the sal in many places overworked, while there 

 is reason to fear that this is the case with the teak also ; but 

 although these three are the most valued timbers, they are by no 

 means the most general. The Himalaya cany enormous quanti- 

 ties of pine timbers, and an abundance of excellent timbers are 

 found in the sal and teak regions, but at present the sole drain is 

 upon the best timbers only. 



III. — Labours of the Department — Besults. 

 The Forest Department, as a first result of its labours, is expected 

 to promptly meet the timber requirements of the Railways and 

 Public Works Department, to bring timber within the reach of the 



