90 SYLVICULTURE IN THE TROPICS pt. i 



former that, unless restrictive measures are applied, 

 most attention will be paid. It is incredible how far 

 the damage done by a single small community will 

 extend, and, where the forests are not naturally self- 

 protected against fire, the latter may spread to the 

 adjacent blocks and cause damage far and wide. The 

 area cultivated is abandoned after a period varying 

 from two to five years, and it gets covered again by a 

 secondary kind of forest, usually of a thorny character, 

 or simply by sheets of dense inflammable grass, such as 

 Imperata arundinacea or by bamboos, Lantana, or 

 Gleichenia fern, the last on poor soil. Thus, for a poor 

 crop of rice, sesame, Eleusine, or Sorghum, which may 

 be repeated two or three times, the growth of a hundred 

 years may be sacrificed. I have seen in Ceylon 

 beautiful forests of satinwood and ebony thus thought- 

 lessly consigned to the axe and flame. In India it has 

 been decided that this practice did not constitute a 

 right, 1 but in Ceylon it is recognised as a right in 

 Kandyan Provinces. It is evident, however, that even 

 where the right exists, it cannot be exercised to the 

 detriment of other property, and that here, as elsewhere, 

 it can be defined and kept within strict limits. Where 

 this practice cannot be abolished and it may not 

 always be possible to do so it should be regulated. 

 Certain areas should be set aside for this cultivation, of 

 sufficient extent that, after a certain number of years, 

 felling and burning can come back to the spot where 

 clearing was done in the first year of the rotation. 

 Thus in Ceylon a twelve years' rotation was adopted, 

 and the areas set aside for chena cultivation were sub- 

 divided into four blocks, each of which could be 

 cultivated for three years. In Burma, and on a very 

 small scale in Ceylon, areas were granted on the 

 understanding that tree seeds be sown with the last 

 year's crop, so that, on taking up a fresh area, the 

 villagers rniojht leave behind the beginning's of a 

 valuable forest crop. 



1 B. H. Baden-Powell, Manual of Jurisprudence for Forest Officers, p. 171. 



