( 8 ) 



limited areas listed in paragraph 32 above, which have been given up for ryotwari settlement 

 and are hence called B I class .Reserves, all the forests are A class Reserves, i.e., are intended 

 to be kept up permanently as forest. 



ARTICLE 4. Rights. 



39. There are no adverse rights or concessions of any kind in these forests. 



ARTICLE 5. Composition and Condition of the Crop. 



40. As all foresters know, the distribution of species whereby various types of forest 

 are formed is the combined result of several factors, viz., climate (average and extremes 

 of temperature, especially during the growing season, rainfall, atmospheric humidity), 

 locality (aspect, gradient, relative elevation and shelter), soil (depth, degree of division of 

 component particles, retentiveness of moisture), and sub-soil (degree of permeability and 

 facility of disaggregation). It is, therefore, not surprising that the very various geological 

 formations which find a common meeting ground in this Division are not characterised by 

 special types of forest, although, speaking negatively, teak is not found outside the trap and 

 Vindhyan areas, nor sal outside the Gondwana sandstones, the one species requiring a 

 hygroscopic soil and a sub-soil that is not too freely permeable, the other free drainage, but 

 with a good rainfall and a prolonged cold weather. A list of trees and shrubs met with 

 in the Division is given in Appendix II. 



41. Before proceeding further it is necessary to draw attention to the fact that we 

 are here at the northern limit of teak and the western limit of the Peninsular area of sal. 

 This limiting line of teak enters the Division on the east in the neighbourhood of parallel 

 of Latitude 23 20' N., runs nearly due west across half the width of the Division and then 

 turns up nearly due north to ultimately sweep round westwards into the Vindhyan area. 

 As all foresters know, it is determined by the excessive cold and the frequency of severe night 

 frosts immediately we step outside it. As regards the sal, the more porous nature of the 

 Gondwana sandstones and the higher rainfall due to the impact of the moisture-laden south- 

 west monsoon winds on the hills which fringe the eastern border of the Jubbulpore district, 

 create the necessary conditions for the existence of that species where it is met with. 



42. Leaving out the sal area, the forests in the Division are of the familiar general 

 type characteristic of the dry hills of Central India, that is to say, low, usually open, for the 

 most part almost scrubby forests, composed of a large variety of species, few of which, 

 however, yield timber or attain large dimensions and the relative proportions of which 

 vary greatly, even suddenly, with the locality (aspect, gradient and relative elevation) 

 and the amount of foothold and moisture afforded by the soil. Naturally poor under 

 the most favourable circumstances, their poverty has been exaggerated by centuries of 

 irregular felling, unchecked forest fires and overgrazing, and, on level ground, also by 

 wandering patch cultivation. Few of the stems rise up directly out of the ground, but 

 stand on more or less high, malformed and unsound stools, while many have been 

 irretrievably injured by pollarding or heavy lopping. With these circumstances added 

 to the unfavourable conditions imposed by nature herself (so that few seeds germinate 

 and of the few seedlings thus produced nearly all perish before the next season of 

 vegetation) it is no wonder that seedling reproduction is extremely backward and in many 

 places practically non-existent, for what to the uninitiated eye looks like, and has often been 

 mistaken for, young seedlings are shoots from small stumps which may be as much as 10 20 

 years old. 



These introductory remarks made, the principal types of forest, established from the 

 point of view of the exploiter, will now be briefly described. These types are (I) Sal forest, 

 (II) Teak forest, (III) Mixed forest with practically no teak or sal, (IV) Bamboo forest. 



43. (I) Sal Forest. This type covers about half the area of blocks 17, 18, 19 and 20> 

 and occurs in patches and strips of various sizes in blocks 15, 21, 25, 30, 31, 32 and 34- 

 The sal nowhere exceeds 80 feet in height, its average stature being scarcely 60 feet, while, 

 although a few stems may attain larger dimensions,* we cannot, as a rule, hope to obtain 

 trees more than 5 feet in girth. Indeed the majority of the trees enter on the decline long 

 before that size is reached and many are dead or in full decay before they can attain a 

 girth of even 4 feet. An extraordinary fact, which cannot fail to strike the most casual 

 observer, is the extreme poverty of the reproduction of the sal ; the characteristic abundant 

 advance growth, pushing up rapidly through the openings between the parent trees or ready 

 to shoot up together and form a close thicket the moment they are uncovered, is seldom 

 met with here. Neither grazing nor fire has anything to do with this failure of reproduction, 

 for blocks 17, 18 and 20 have been closed to grazing and specially protected from fire ever 

 since 1871, and yet young sal is not any more abundant there than in adjoining areas that 

 have always been open to cattle and annual fires. In 1874, when Messrs. Fernandez and 

 Smythies examined these blocks, and again in 1875, when the Inspector-General of Forests 

 inspected them, numerous yearlings and older seedlings which, in the usual way of young 

 seedlings of tree species, died down to the root-collum every year, were to be found in 

 the midst of the grass in the then recently-abandoned fields scattered throughout 



* As very exceptional cases may be instanced four trees. One cut in 1867, is said to have yielded 300 cutiic 

 feet of souud timber. Another, found lying in the forest in 1875, had a basal diameter of 4 feet. In this latter 

 year also two standing trees were measured and girthed respectively 8 feet 9 inches and 9 feet 2 inches. 



