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NA TURE 



{Dec. 27, 1888 



THE FORESTS OF UPPER BURMAH. 



MR. H. C. HILL, the Conservator of theForest? of Upper 

 Burtnah, in his Report for the past year — that is, the first 

 year of the existence of a Forest Department in that territory — 

 says that even in that short time a great advance has been made 

 in the protection of forests. Though the Secretary of State 

 sanctioned the appointment of a staff of two conservators and 

 nineteen assistant conservators, and the Indian Government 

 decided that for the present one conservator and fifteen assist- 

 ants should be appointed, yet the staff in July numbered no 

 more than eleven. The addition of two more is, however, 

 promised at an early date. The work done by this small staff 

 has been very difficult. The areas are enormous, a division 

 averaging about 4000 square miles, the forest land of that tract 

 being from one-third to one-half of the area. Besides, every 

 opposition has been put in the way of the work of the Depart- 

 inent by the natives, who have been accvistomed in the past to 

 cut the forest timber as they liked. And so it became necessary 

 to send armed escorts with the officers. The Inspector-General's 

 suo-gestion that a sufficiently strong force of armed men should be 

 organized to protect the forest officers was not acted on. A 

 body of about two hundred police are now constantly engaged 

 in this service. Occasionally difficulties have cropped up, 

 especially when long marches were to be made, but on the whole 

 the present system has worked well. The knowledge that 

 Uacoits might be met with at any turn has to some extent 

 hampered the operations of the forest officials. From the 

 reckless cutting of timber in the past it is probable that the 

 supply in accessible forests will prove smaller than was anti- 

 cipated. No actual demarcation has as yet taken place, but 

 5560 acres in the Ruby Mine district have been inspected, and a 

 further area of 2440 acres has been described as suitable for 

 reserve land. During the year fifty -seven persons were con- 

 victed of various offences against the forest regulations. 

 Nurseries have been established at Bernardymo and Mogouk, 

 where besides the work done in forest trees, 500 European 

 grafted fruit trees were planted, and of these 149 grew, including 

 pears, apples, peaches, apricots, and plums. One great diffi- 

 culty has been the disputes between the original lessees of the 

 Royal forests and the present Forest Department. The Govern- 

 ment offer has been accepted by the Bombay Burmah Corporation, 

 but other lessees have not yet assented to the terms. The 

 Government propose to continue the rights under the various 

 leases to the holders under new agreements, substituting a 

 system of payment on the timber actually extracted for the 

 yearly lump-sum payments, and enforcing the rules and 

 regulations as regards girdling, felling of green teak, and all 

 other matters connected with the girdling of the forests. The 

 effect of the war can be seen in the returns of the amount of 

 timber felled. Thus the Bombay Burmah Corporation extracted 

 from the Byinmana forests in 1885, 63,000 tons ; in 1886, 18,000 

 tons ; in 1887, 26,000 tons. There has been a serious loss to the 

 forest revenue in the past year by the wholesale plundering of 

 unmarked timber by local traders. After passing through various 

 hands, this timber finally reached a revenue station, where it was 

 passed into the market centres on payment of the local duty. 



THE COCOA-NUT PALM. 



THE Government Press at Madras recently issued "A 

 Monograph on the Cocoa-nut Palm, or Cocos nucifera," 

 by Dr. John Short, which, the introduction tells us, was written 

 at the request of the Director of Revenue, Settlement, and 

 Agriculture. The author begins by pointing out the area of 

 distribution of the cocoa-nut tree. It is indigenous in the East, 

 and is now largely cultivated on the coasts of India and Ceylon, 

 and in the islands of the Eastern Archipelago. There are as 

 many as twenty millions in the south-west of Ceylon. The 

 palm frequently grows wild in distant and isolated islands, 

 whither the germ has been borne by the sea, the thick fibrous 

 padding around the nut protecting it from the action of the 

 water. So we constantly see that coral reefs, as soon as they 

 make their appearance above the surface of the water, are taken 

 possession of by these trees. The sea-shore is the home of the 

 palm ; it grows quite down to the water's edge, and is in many 

 places constantly washed by the waves. Thus, along the 

 Brazilian coast for a distance of nearly 280 miles, from the 

 River San Francisco to the bar of Mamanguape, these trees 



extend. We also, however, find them far inland, and at 

 the height of several thousand feet above the level of the 

 sea. At Bangalore they flourish and produce fruit in abund- 

 ance at a height of 3000 feet above the sea-level.. From a 

 dietetical and economical point of view, the cocoa nut palm is a 

 most valuable plant ; sugar, starch, oil, wax, wine, resin, 

 astiingent matters, and edible fruits are its gifts to man. An 

 alluvial or loamy soil is the most suitable for planting it, and 

 no more than 80 plants an acre should be planted to get the 

 maximum amount of fruit possible. Ntfts obtainable from trees 

 of from fifteen to thirty years old are the best for planting. 

 There are numerous varieties of this tree, there being as many 

 as thirty in Travancore alone. One dwarf variety bears fruit 

 when it is only 2 feet in height. Toddy is the sap of the 

 cocoa-nut palm, and when the toddy-drawer wishes to get 

 out the sap of the tree, he binds the flower spathe tightly 

 with fibres of the tree, and beats it twice a day for three or 

 four days with a short stick. The top is then sliced, and as 

 soon as the sap begins to flow, a vessel, either earthen or made of 

 bamboo, is tied to the spathe to receive the sap , The spathe is kept 

 bleeding by making a fresh wound in it each day. The fluid, 

 when fresh, has a pleasant taste, and is slightly aperient. When 

 kept for a few hours, it ferments and becomes somewhat intoxi- 

 cating, and it may then be distilled into spirits or vinegar. With 

 bakers it takes the place of yeast. The quantity of toddy taken 

 out varies with the age and locality of the spathe, but the 

 average quantity obtained for two or three weeks is three or four 

 quarts every twenty-four hours. The liquid is also boiled down 

 into a coarse kind of sugar called jaggery, which is either con- 

 verted into molasses, or refined before fermentation sets in into 

 white or brown sugar. In some places the occupation of toddy- 

 drawer is an hereditary one. Their mode of work is very 

 simple, but is extremely dangerous. A thong made of bullock 

 or buffalo hide, from 3 to 6 inches in width, and long enough to 

 surround the tree and the body of the climber, is fastened with a 

 peculiar kind of knot. The worker then stretches the thong to 

 its utmost by throwing his whole weight on it, and draws up his 

 legs. He has a riag of rope of palmyra fibres around his insteps, 

 which allows him to grasp the tree between his heels. While 

 his left hand is pressed against the trunk he shifts the thong up 

 the tree with his right and draws his body up with it. 



" Cocoa-nut day " is celebrated in most parts of India during 

 the full moon in August. On that day numbers of nuts are thrown 

 into the sea as an offering to the Hindu gods. Occasionally 

 one meets with deformed nuts, consisting of the husk with 

 small deformed nuts having no kernel inside. The natives 

 attribute this blighting of the fruit to the tree frog (Polypedates 

 maculatiis), which, by smelling the flower, can prevent the 

 fruit from coming to maturity. The kernel of the nut is fre- 

 quently made into ornaments for the hair, or necklaces. The 

 plants. Dr. Short says, are subject to disease from two opposite 

 causes : first, from too much moisture, as in swampy soils, 

 where the fronds are usually small and ill-formed, and the fiu't 

 scarce ; secondly, from lack of moisture, where the soil is hard 

 and dry, the sap-bearing vessels shrink and the plant perishes. 

 Amongst the insects and animals destructive to the palm may 

 be mentioned the Calandra palniarum, or cocoa-nut weevil, 

 which eats its way into the heart of the tree, and forms its 

 cocoon there ; the BiUocera rubiis, or cocoa-nut beetle ; the 

 Orydis rhinocera, or rhinoceros beetle ; the P/eroinyes petaurista, 

 or flying squirrel ; the Sciurus palmarum, or common striped 

 palm squirrel ; the Ptetopus edimrds'-, or flying fox ; and the 

 Paradoxurus tnusanga, or tree-dog. The rat family is very 

 destructive, particularly in the Laccadives, It is exceedingly 

 difficult to get at these rats, they make to themselves so many 

 hiding-places amongst the trees. Rat hunts are, however, occa- 

 sionally got up, and to these all the inhabitants turn out with sticks 

 and poles. While some of the hunters climb the trees and drive 

 out the rats, the rest surround the trunks and kill the animals as 

 they rush down. On some of these occasions thousands of rats 

 are killed. The people, being Mohammedans, cannot be 

 induced to keep dogs. It only remains to add that there are 

 ten excellent illustrations in this monograph- 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 

 Cambridge.— The following open scholarships and exhibi- 

 tions were awarded at St. John's College, in mathematics 

 and natural science, on December 21 : — 



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