TECTONA 727 



reports. The figures so recorded do not always appear to be based on sufficiently 

 comprehensive data, but there is enough rehable evidence to confirm in no 

 uncertain manner the conclusions previously arrived at, to the eft'ect that 

 prolonged fire-protection in the moist types of teak forest is detrimental to 

 the establishment of teak reproduction. As an indication of the adverse 

 effects of fire-protection in certain of the forests of the Ruby Mines district, 

 the following extract, which describes the condition of things after seven or 

 eight years of successful fire-protection, may be quoted from the working plan 

 of the Maingtha, Kunchaung, and Nanme reserves : ^ 



' The effect of fire-protection here is that the undergrowth, naturally very 

 dense and consisting largely of evergreen species, is rendered still denser : in 

 waho 2 areas it is almost impenetrable, while in tinwa ^ areas on high ground, 

 where light enters more freely, a heavy undergrowth of dwarf tinwa springs 

 up. The result is that (1) teak seeds lying on a cold bed of decaying vegetable 

 matter do not receive sufficient exposure to light and heat necessary to germina- 

 tion, seedlings are practically non-existent, and no new root-stocks are formed 

 whence shoots may annually endeavour to establish themselves, (2) shoots 

 on old root-stocks are more liable to suppression than they are in non-fire- 

 protected forests. In drawing these conclusions it has been observed that 

 trees grown direct from seedlings are practically never found in either fire- 

 protected or non-fire-protected areas : reproduction consists entirely of shoots 

 on old stocks, some very old, some only a few years old. These shoots are less 

 plentiful in fire-protected than in non-fire-protected areas, but in neither are 

 they common except where breaks in the undergrowth and low overhead 

 cover have been formed, usually by removal of bamboos or groups of teak in 

 semi-evergreen forest. But the most convincing part of the experiment* has 

 taken place in the forest in the neighbourhood of Dogyaung, Asugyi, and 

 Kwehaungdon villages, where bamboos have been heavily cut for a. great 

 number of years. In this locality, on the one hand, splendid groves of sound 

 small teak trees of a girth of one or two feet may be seen which sprang up as 

 the result of bamboo-cutting in the days when fire-protection had never been 

 thought of ; they are not merely chance groups, as they occur freely over 

 several compartments. On the other hand, although bamboos have been cut 

 just as regularly and probably more heavily during the last eight years since 

 fire-protection was instituted, there are now only a few fair patches of repro- 

 duction, and no considerable number of seedlings or stool shoots to be found 

 on corresponding areas ; and they ought to appear in still greater numbers 

 if fire-protection is to be justified.' 



These remarks are the more interesting in that the writer, Mr. Walsh, 

 admits having commenced his observations with preconceived ideas ' that 

 correct conservancy of every type of forest included the prevention of fire '. 



Although it is now generally agreed that continuous fire-protection is 

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

 the moist types of teak-bearing forest in Burma, our knoAvledge of the subject 

 is by no means complete. The value of fire-protection in the dry types of teak 

 forest in the Indian Peninsula is fully admitted, and there is in all probability 

 a stage between the moister types and the driest types in Burma in A^hich fire- 



1 Working Plan for the Maingtha, Kunchaung, and Nanme Reserves, Ruby Mines Di\dsion, 

 H. L. P. Walsh, 1906. 



2 Dendrocalamus Hamiltonii. ^ Cephalostachijuin pergracile. 



* The protection of these forests is described by the writer of the working plan as ' a gigantic 

 experiment which has cost half a lakh of rupees '. 



