TECTONA 725 



In Burma the precise effects of annual burning and of continuous fire- 

 protection on the condition of the forest and the undergrowth are easy to 

 observe. Where, as is usual, bamboos form as it were the matrix of the forest, 

 tire-protection has the effect of greatly increasing the luxuriance of the bamboo 

 growth, so much so that the establishment of teak seedlings, even if germination 

 were possible, is out of the question. Figs. 275 and 276 respectively show 

 typical forest of Bamhusa polymorjjka and Cephalostachyum pergracile, the 

 former never fire-protected and containing teak reproduction, and the latter 

 successfully fire-protected for fourteen years, during which time so dense 

 a growth of bamboo has taken possession of the ground that teak reproduction 

 is quite unable to establish itself. Longer periods of fire-protection show even 

 greater changes, and in many cases the forest becomes converted from a 

 deciduous to an evergreen type by the encouragement of sensitive evergreen 

 shade-bearers. In annually burnt teak forests of the type under consideration 

 the seedlings, it is true, may be burnt back year after year, meanwhile 

 developing thick root-stocks, but their wonderful power of recovery enables 

 them to survive, and even to gather strength with each successive burning 

 back, until eventually the time comes when the seedlings are able to survive 

 the burning and to establish themselves as strong healthy plants. 



The desirability of extending fire-protection throughout all classes of teak- 

 producing forest in Burma was first called in question by the late Mr. H. Slade 

 in 1896.^ The interest in the matter which was thus awakened resulted in 

 a mass of evidence being collected, the great bulk of which affords ample proof 

 that in the moist types of teak-bearing forest indiscriminate fire-protection is 

 detrimental to, and may entirely prevent, the natural reproduction of teak, 

 and that if it is continued it is likely to result in the total disappearance of 

 teak throughout large areas of the most important class of teak-bearing forest 

 in Burma. The recognition of this fact has resulted in the abandonment of 

 fire -protection over considerable areas where its results are known to be 

 detrimental to the reproduction of teak. It may be of interest here to examine 

 some of the evidence which has led to this step being taken. 



The first actual enumerations made with the view of comparing the stock 

 of young teak trees in fire-protected and burnt forest respectively appear to 

 have been those which I carried out in 1905 in two adjoining plots, one inside 

 and the other outside the external fire-line of the Kadinbihn reserve in Tharra- 

 waddy.- The former plot, 37 acres in area, had been successfully protected from 

 fire for thirty -two years, and the latter had never been fire-protected. The plots 

 were typical of the usual moist mixed forest of the Pegu Yoma, the bamboos 

 being Bambusa polymorpha and Cephalostachytun pergracile. Prior to the 

 introduction of fire-protection, both plots must have been precisely the same 

 in appearance and character ; at the time of the enumeration, however, pro- 

 longed fire-protection had greatly increased the density of the bamboos in 

 the protected plot. There was a sufficiency of teak seed-bearers in both plots 

 to secure ample reproduction under favourable conditions. In both plots 

 bamboo extraction had been carried on for many years, and in the fire-protected 

 plot improvement fellings had been carried out twice, and dibblings of teak 

 seed had been made. Everything therefore favoured a plentiful crop of young 



1 Ind. Forester, xxii (1896), p. 172. ^ md^ xxxi (1905), p. 138. 



