50. Night-frosts. Severe night-frost? occur at intervals of a few years, doing consider- 

 able damage everywhere except on the higher slopes and hill-tops and plateaux. In ex- 

 ceptional years the tallest trees look, after a single night of frost, as if all their leaves and twigs 

 had been scorched by fire. Many permanent grassy blanks of greater or less extent in low 

 situations are the direct result of frost, whatever little forest growth that may put in an 

 appearance being killed off almost as fast as it shows itself. It is necessary here to draw 

 attention to the fact that nothing short of a complete or almost complete canopy of trees can 

 serve as a protection to young growth ; hence the futility of keeping standards as a safeguard 

 against frost (see also paragraph 100 below). 



51. Climbers. Climbers are fairly common in places, especially Makor and Mahol, 

 but the damage they do is inconsiderable and no special measure is required beyond cutting 

 them down and pulling up by the roots the smaller individuals when the coupes containing 

 them come to be felled. 



CHAPTER III. SYSTEM OF MANAGEMENT. 

 ARTICLE 1. Past and Present Systems of Management. 



52. This subject will be best considered under five distinct periods as follows : 

 (i) Prior to 1862, (ii) 186271, (iii) 187187, (iv) 188793 and (v) from 1893 up to date. 



53. Prior to 1862 forests were considered a free gift of nature, that grew of them- 

 selves and required no conserving. 



54. 186% 71. Soon after the first foundations of forest conservation in these provinces 

 were laid in 1862 by the appointment of a Conservator of Forests, attention was attracted to 

 blocks 17, 18 and 20 in the north-eastern corner of the Jubbulpore district. In these blocks 

 operations were being carried on for the supply of sal, saj, kahu and rohin sleepers to the 

 East Indian Railway. In March 1863, they were visited by the Inspector-General of Forests 

 accompanied by the Conservator of Forests and were pronounced to be, on the whole, very 

 favourable for the production of sal. It was, however, not until 1865 that the first effective 

 move was made to bring them under some sort of protection and not until 1867 that they, 

 together with block 59 in the Mandla district, were demarcated and formally reserved. In 

 the meantime heavy fellings had been continued in them and nearly all the sal, saj, kahu and 

 rohin trees that were considered capable of furnishing broad-gauge sleepers had been felled. 

 In 1871, in accordance with the ideas of forest conservation then prevailing, they, as well as 

 block 59, were closed to all cutting and grazing. 



The forests which constitute the remainder of the present Jubbulpore Division were under 

 no kind of management until they came, as Unreserved Forests, under the operation of the 

 Forest Act (VII) of 1865. They were, however, placed under the control of the Deputy Com- 

 missioners. It was found convenient for revenue purposes to lease them out to annual farm- 

 ers, on whom no restrictions were imposed except that they were bound to rigidly respect 

 a few species, such as teak, sal, mahua, achar, &c. 



After 1863 all the reserved forests that were situated within the limits of the present 

 Jnbbulpore Division, formed part of the Northern Division, which included all the reserved 

 forests in the Mandla, Jubbulpore, Darnoh and Saugor districts. As said above, the other 

 State forests were administered by the Deputy Commissioners. 



55. 18711887. The four Reserves (blocks 17, 18, 20 and 59) still forming a part of 

 the Northern Division, continued to be closed to cattle and to the woodcutter, although several 

 thousand dead and dying sal trees were extracted by departmental agency and sold for mine 

 props to the Umaria Colliery from the first three blocks in 1886-87. 



The Unreserved forests were, soon after the promulgation of the Indian Forest Act 

 (VII) of 1878, declared Reserved Forests, but the farming system still remained in force. 



56. 1887 93. In 1887 all the forests of the Jubbulpore district, together with the 

 Singrampur Reserve, were constituted into a separate Forest Division under its present name 

 and for the first time a superior Forest Officer was placed in charge of all the areas, the origi- 

 nal as well as the later reserves of 1879 that had until then been under the control of the 

 Deputy Commissioners unassisted by a professional officer. Singrampur was ultimately de- 

 tached in 1891 when the Damoh Forest Division was formed. In 1891 the Dhanwahi Range 

 of the Mandla Division was, with a view to administrative convenience, transferred to the 

 Jubbulpore Division, thus completing the present constitution of this Division. 



With the commencement of this period the farming system was abolished and 

 replaced by the license system, under which a person provided with a license could 

 go into any forest or forests named therein and cut and remove the produce thereunder 

 purchased, selecting the trees himself and felling them in the manner most convenient 

 to himself or to his woodcutters. This was unquestionably a long step in advance of the 

 previous farming regime, but the straightest and most promising stems of the most valuable 

 species continued to be cut as before, leaving in the forest nothing but unsaleable rubbish 

 and unsightly pollards and rendering future improvement more and more difficult. 



