The reason why sal does not extend up the hill sides is probahly not on account of the 

 elevation, but rather owing to the shallowness of the soil, it being a coincidence that an eleva- 

 tion of 2,000 feet or over coincides with a stony shallow soil. 



13. The areas containing sal forest lie between the mixed forest and the grass land, that 

 Sal forests ' s to SA ^' Detween the elevations of 2,000 feet and 1 ,800. The sal 



crop Varies considerably according to the locality, as will be seen 



in the description of compartments, given in the Appendix ; it will, therefore, be sufficient here 

 to describe only normal conditions of sal forest and to indicate shortly in which respect the 

 crop varies. 



The sal forest of the Banjar Valley Reserve has the appearance of a somewha: irregularly 

 worked selection forest. 



All age classes are found in close proximity, those of the middle age, i.e., from 3' to ^'6' 

 in girth predominate. Mature trees are tall, clean, straight, 70 feet in height and 5 to 6 feet in 

 girth. Underneath these trees and slightly dominated by them, is a full crop of trees and 

 poles 30 to 60 feet in height and varying from 3' to 4/6' in girth ready, as soon as the domi- 

 nant trees have been removed, to take their places. Under the poles, again, and suppressed 

 by them, is a dense mass of suppressed seedlings, generally suffering from the effects of frost 

 and fire, but which, nevertheless, will eventually succeed in forcing their way up. 



Few other trees are associated with sal, those chiefly found are saj, tinsa, tendu, haldu 

 lendia, dhawa. 



The soil is bare or scantily covered with grass. 



Travelling through the sal forest in an upward direction towards the mixed forest one 

 notices that the density of the stock diminishes. Young seedlings give place to bamboos, the 

 height growth of the mature trees is less and other species begin to appear in greater numbers. 

 As one assends still further, many of the trees are topsore especially amongst the pole classes, 

 until one gradually passes into the type of forest already described as mixed forest containing 

 sal. 



Forests differing from the above types are met with as follows : 



In exceptionally favourable localities trees reach a height of 120 feet and a girth of 1 1 feet. 

 In poor localities mature trees only attain a height of 50 feet arid 5 feet in girth, and instead 

 of being clean and straight stemmed may be crooked, unsound and covered with epicormic 

 branches. 



Regeneration is sometimes entirely absent without apparent reason or the crop may be of 

 so open a nature that regeneration is prevented by frost. 



Teak occurs in one place associated with sal where it was planted in 1882, a full des- 

 cription is given elsewhere. 



14. Grass Land is of two types, namely, that which is found inside mixed forest, and 

 Grass Land l ^ at wn > c ^ is found in sal forest. The former has already 



been cursorily described under the heading of mixed forest 



to which it properly speaking belongs, and as it never has contained, or could contain, 

 sal, the description need not be added to here. The latter type of grass land is found in 

 the lowest portion of the Reserve from 1,700 to 1,800 feet in elevation, that is to say, below 

 and adjoining the sal forest in which the grass lands properly speaking constitute blanks. 



The boundary between the grass land and the sal forest, unlike that between sal forest 

 and mixed forest, is abrupt and well marked, being terminated by a wall of middle-aged sal 

 trees. 



The present total area of grass land inside sal forest is 6,740 acres of which it is estimat- 

 ed 675 acres are situated in river beds or swampy places and therefore incapable of ever 

 bearing sal trees. The remaining 6,065 acres, however, are capable of producing first class 

 sal. At present they are covered by isolated trees or clumps of trees, occasionally sal, more 

 generally other species, such as tendu, tinsa, saj, semar, cheola, lendia, her, bahera, &c. 



Between these trees lies an undulating plain of long rank grass full of seedlings of sal 

 tendu, saj, semar, dhawa which have attained the height of the grass and no more, being 

 annually cut down by frost. 



Clumps of sal which occur in blanks have usually a large old tree standing near their 

 centre and it has been noticed that the trees gradually decreased in size and age towards 

 the edge of the clump. From this it is safe to conclude that the old mother tree had already 

 got its head above the level of the frost, at the time when the forest was cut down. Since 

 then youn<* sal have grown up under its shelter, which again sheltered younger sal, and thus 

 the clump was gradually extended. Similarly, round the edge of the sal forest the same 

 process is going on, young seedlings appear 200 yards inside the grass lands in numbers Only 

 those, however, immediately next to the sal forest succeed in establishing themselves. In this 



