IV 



harassment to the villagers than fire-protection on a more regular system. There 

 are no fire-guards and not always fire lines, and the Department simply relies for 

 success on the fear it can instil of the penal law, which applies, be it remembered, 

 not only to those who kindle fire within the forests, but to those who kindle it on 

 private land outside them. The policy affords great scope for oppression to 

 Forest subordinates, who, when a fire has occurred and an enquiry has been 

 ordered, are anxious of course to bring home responsibility to some one. I am 

 generally averse to fire-protection of C class. But in the case of grazing areas, 

 I am against any fire-protection whatever. 



6. I will venture to go further and to advance an opinion that even in the 

 case of areas which can grow timber of some kind, we have gone too far in 

 absolutely barring fire. No one can examine the fire-protected forests of these 

 Provinces without a feeling of surprise that there should be so little natural 

 reproduction to reward our efforts. Yet there must have been natural reproduction 

 at some time in the history of these lands, although it is difficult to believe that 

 they have not been from time immemorial liable to fires. May it not be that the 

 damage caused by a forest fire depends in very great measure on the season at 

 which it occurs, and that if it passed over the ground during the cold weather, 

 when trees are generally lifeless, it would injure their flowering and fruiting but 

 little while providing a suitable bed for their seeds? I do not of course dispute the 

 position that annual fires are incompatible with tree reproduction. But 1 think 

 that occasional fires, early in the season, might, if they coincided with a heavy 

 seeding season and a favourable monsoon, start the renovation our jungles lack 

 at present, and I should much like to see this idea given a trial on the areas which 

 are classed as "unworkable" in the present working-plan. 



No. 3173, dated Seoni, the isth October 1900. 

 From A. MAYNE, Esq., I. C. S., Deputy Commissioner, Seoni, 

 To The Conservator of Forests, Southern Circle, Central Provinces. 



[Through the Commissioner, Jubbulpore Division.'] 



In forwarding the Final Working-Plan Report for the three Northern 

 Ranges of this district, I have the honour to state that I have discussed with the 

 Forest Divisional Officer his proposals and am satisfied that his scheme will afford 

 adequate faci'ities for the nistar of the people living near in the matter of grazing 

 and of the supply of forest produce. There is at present practically no outside 

 demand for either. The villages near Government forests have many of them 

 extensive jungles of their own. There is no risk of agriculturalists or others being 

 put to serious inconvenience by the system of working proposed. 



2. At the same time I must confess that I hardly think that a case has been 

 made out for the considerable increase in expenditure proposed by the Forest 

 Divisional Officer. Para. 24 of his report shows that the average income 

 and expenditure of the five years ending 1898-99 was Rs. 22,885 an d R S - 8,830 

 respectively. The Forest Divisional Officer anticipates an income of Rs. 24,367, 

 the previous average figure quoted having been brought unduly low by the 

 inclusion of a year of famine. His proposals, if carried fully into effect, will 

 involve an expenditure of Rs. 14,367, being an increase of Rs. 5,537 per annum 

 above the present cost of managing the three ranges. Rupees 4,500 of this increase 

 will be due to the cost of fire-protection, and the ba^nce to the entertainment of 

 a higher-paid staff and provision of better accommodation for them, &c. At 

 present the forests are to a considerable extent burnt over each year vide 

 para. 22 of Report. The inhabitants are firmly convinced that only by 

 such burning can good grazing be secured. With the Gonds of that part it is 

 considered a pious act to burn a block of forest. I should recommend our 

 proceeding very cautiously and economically in the matter of fire-protection, 

 confining our attention for the present to the parts of the Nerbada Range 

 which will be accessible to the Satpura Railway. 



