ACACIA 439 



necessary. Sowings in pits and patches proved an entire failure, the seedlings 

 being swamped not long after germination. 



Afforestation of ravine lands : the Kalpi plantation. The Kalpi plantation 

 in the Jalaun district of the United Provinces was started in 1904 by the 

 acquisition of 850 acres of ravine land, with the twofold object of producing 

 supplies of babul bark for the Cawnpore tanneries and of ascertaining whether 

 ravine lands could be successfully afforested with babul, in order to check the 

 erosion to which these tracts are subject every year. Afforestation work was 

 completed over the whole area in nine years. 



This plantation may be regarded so far as purely experimental, but it 

 has demonstrated that the ravine lands of the United Provinces can be success- 

 fully afforested with babul. The financial success of the plantation has not 

 yet been assured, but this is due largely to the experimental character and 

 therefore high cost of the work, and to a succession of abnormal years of frost 

 and drought which greatly militated against success, ancT required the partial 

 renewal of sowing operations over the same ground for a few years in succes- 

 sion. The plantation might have been more successful had closer supervision 

 been possible, but as far as they go the results have been by no means un- 

 satisfactory. 



The preliminary work of reclamation of these ravine lands consists of 

 breaking down the steep sides of the ravines into gentler slopes and construct- 

 ing at intervals across the ravines bunds of loose earth with suitable outlets 

 for water dug in the hard ground round their ends : these bunds are con- 

 structed at a comparatively cheap rate. This work is followed by the sowing 

 of babul seed thickly along the bunds, on the sides of the ravines and on the 

 elevated ground between them. The soil is extremely poor, with layers of 

 gravel and kankar, the latter in particular hindering the development of the 

 taproot. The sowings have proved particularly successful on the bunds of 

 loose earth, which have become covered with dense promising crops of 

 babul. 



Apart from the bund sowings, which have always given the greatest 

 success, three principal methods of sowing were tried : 



1. Ploughing in strips with broadcast sowing. This was carried out in 

 places where the ground was sufficiently level : strips were ploughed to 

 a width of 3 or 4 ft., a distance of about four paces separating the strips, and 

 seed was sown broadcast along the strips and covered by means of the agri- 

 cultural patra. After the first year the width of the ploughed strips was 

 increased to 5 or 6 ft. Ploughing was carried out at the commencement of 

 and after the end of the monsoon rains, that is up to the middle of July and in 

 September and October, and again during the winter rains in December and 

 January. Thorough ploughing is necessary to eradicate the roots of grass 

 and weeds. 



2. Pitting. Where ploughing was impracticable, pits measuring 1| ft. 

 in diameter and depth were dug at frequent intervals on contour lines, the 

 loose earth being returned to the pits and the seed being sown on it : in the 

 second year the size of the pits was reduced to 1 ft. in diameter and depth. 



3. Lining. This was a modified form of pitting in which the lines con- 

 sisted of elongated pits along the contour. 



