222 REPORT ON THE FORESTS OF INDIA. 



The only considerable area that can be regarded as a practical 

 success is the Punjab area, which has been twelve years in course 

 of formation, and subject to an irrigation tax which has absorbed 

 three-fourths of the outlay. The bulk of these plantations are 

 along the railway in the arid region between Mooltan and Lahore, 

 and are already giving an income from thinnings, the sowings of 

 1865-66 being now represented by trees upwards of 30 feet 

 high and approaching 3 feet girth at base. These plantations, 

 too, are situated in localities where their existence is a pressing 

 necessity. The Dalbergia sissoo, a rosewood, is almost the only tree 

 grown ; and this is so valuable a timber for every conceivable pur- 

 pose, that although the plantations were grown with the object of 

 supplying railway fuel, they promise by-and-by to supply valuable 

 timber for local requirements. But the heavy water-rates render 

 the ultimate financial results of these plantations an open question. 

 The subsoil water is at a depth of 60 feet from the surface. 



The generally unsatisfactory results of plantations, the frequent 

 necessity of sowing or planting the same area year after year, in 

 the vain endeavour to stock it uniformly, together with the high 

 costs of such results as were achieved, all tended to divert atten- 

 tion from artificial to natural reproduction. The annual jungle 

 fires are the great obstacle, for although large areas of our high 

 forests are sufficiently open to foster an almost uniform fresh 

 growth, which appears only to need the removal of the old timber 

 to spring into vigorous life, experience has shown that the removal 

 of the old timber paves the way for the conversion of the forest 

 into grass land, unless the jungle fires can be kept out. Strenuous 

 efforts have been made in this direction — forest operations have 

 been suspended in selected blocks, forest rights including grazing 

 provided for elsewhere, broad fire Lines 60 to 100 feet wide 

 have been cut round and through the blocks, and sometimes 

 fires have been excluded for two or three consecutive years j the 

 young crop springs up vigorously — another year or two of conserv- 

 ancv would at least place it beyond the reach of actual destruction 

 from fire, when some fine morning towards the close of the hot 

 season the forest officer awakes to find the forest all in a blaze. 

 There were rights of way through it which could not be closed, and 

 a party of villagers passing through the previous evening with 

 their lighted hookahs threw the hot ashes on the floor, or camped 

 in the forest at night, Lighting a fire, which spread as soon as they 

 fell asleep, when, instead of trying to put it out before it had 



