Silviculture. 343 



In some parts ^ the large gregarious bamboos are a 

 serious obstacle to reproduction. The only chance for 

 reproduction exists when they flower and die. Killing 

 the bamboos by cutting the annual shoots proved a fail- 

 ure, but burning over the whole area and sowing seems 

 to be followed by success. 



In other parts, as in the large Teak forests of Burma, 

 as well as of other provinces, the useless kinds of trees 

 are girdled, huge climbers are cut off, and a steady war 

 is waged against all species detrimental to teak regen- 

 eration with satisfactory results. With Teak even 

 planting on a larger scale is resorted to, especially by 

 means of taungyas, i. e. plantations, where the native 

 is allowed to burn down a piece of woods, use it for a 

 few years as field (though it is never really cleared) on 

 condition of planting it with teak, being paid a certain 

 sum for every hundred trees found in a thrifty condi- 

 tion at the time of giving up his land. Similarly, the 

 department has expended large sums in attempting to 

 establish forests in parts of the arid region of Beluchis- 

 tan, and on the whole during 1894-95 about 150,000 

 were expended on cultural operations, which up to 

 that time involved about 76,000 acres of regular plan- 

 tations and 36,000 acres taungi/as (mostly teak), mak- 

 ing a total of 112,000 acres, besides numerous large 

 areas where the work consisted merely in aiding natural 

 reproduction. 



But in 1902 the plantations seem to have been re- 

 duced to 63,000 acres, (probably through failures), the 

 taungyas however increased to 64.000 acres, and the 

 budget for plantings and other cultural measures 

 formed nearly two per cent, of the gross revenues. 



