TECTONA 741 



Cost per acre. 

 Rs. a. 



10 

 2 



2 



1 8 



2 

 2 8 



2 



2 



2 



2 



40 Thinning .... 30 



Rs. 15-8 



Rs. 20 



Rs. 24 



Rs. 28 

 Rs. 31 



In the more accessible plantations of Tharrawaddy the produce of thinnings 

 begins to be saleable at an age of 20 years, and it is reckoned that the whole 

 cost of the plantation, mth compound interest to date, is recovered in 40 to 

 50 years ; this, however, is not the case in all the plantations either of Tharra- 

 waddy or of other localities. Generally speaking it may be said that it ought 

 to be possible to establish taungya plantations and bring them through the 

 weeding stages up to say the fifth year, at a cost of not more than Rs. 20 

 per acre. 



Fig. 284 gives a general view of a young teak taungya plantation ; Fig. 285 

 shows a well-stocked young plantation ; and Fig. 286 shows a plantation nine 

 years old, ready for the first thinning. 



Kumri plantations in Coorg. The taungya, locally known as kumri, method 

 of forming teak plantations has been practised for some time in Coorg, the 

 work being done mainly by the Kurumbars. Teak seedlings are supplied by 

 the Forest Department, and these are planted out by the Kurumbars free of 

 cost with their crops, which consist usually of hill rice and ra^i {Eleusine 

 coracana). The area is again burnt and cultivated a second year, casualties 

 among the teak being rej)laced ; the burning is found to stimulate the growth 

 of the teak. The Kurumbars tend the plants until they are 2| years old, and 

 then receive payment at the rate of Rs. 1-4-0 per hundred surviving plants ; 

 this includes payment for the collection of teak seed. 



Recently direct sowing after the Burma plan, instead of transplanting, 

 has been tried in the kumris of Coorg, and the results have proved successful 

 provided sowing is done as soon as possible after the clearings are burnt, in 

 order to obtain the benefit of the early showers in April and ^l?ky. Weedings 

 are carried out for the first two or three years. 



Line sowings with field crops. Mr. L. S. Osmaston ^ has described the 

 results of experimental line sowings of teak and other tree species along with 

 field crops in the dry parts of the Bombay Deccan, where the normal rainfall 

 is about 20 in. He states that in his experience the only successful method of 

 restocking these dry tracts is by means of agriculture combined with forestrj'- ; 



. 1 Ind. Forester, xxxiii (1907), p. 265. 



