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APPENDIX IX. 



ESTABLISHMENT OF KAT^A-BOILING CIRCLES (PARAS. 24 AND 104). 



Letter No. 3128-31, from E. E.FERNANDEZ, Esq., Conservator of Forests, Northern Circle, 

 Central Provinces, to the Divisional Forest Officers, Jubbulpore, Damoh, Saugor 

 and Na.rsinghpur, dated Jvtibulpore, the 13th June 1900. 



The katha-boiling industry has been carried on in a spasmodic way in the first three 

 districts named above for many years past by professional gangs calling themselves khaimuas, 

 but has never hitherto received from the Forest Department the encouragement it deserves, 

 and has also suffered from the absence of any kind of systematic regulation. 



2. The khair tree does not with us attain any size, and although gregarious, never forms 

 dense masses of more or less pure forest. The wood is highly esteemed locally for 

 small house-props and for certain agricultural implements. To give to the katha-boiler 

 wood suitable for such purposes would of course be a mistake from both the financial 

 and economic points of view, but for every tree capable of yielding useful timber 

 there are at least ten others which, if cut at all, would go out as mere fuel if it was not pos- 

 sible to persuade the katha-boiler to come and turn it to better account. 



3. The katha-boiler himself is neither enterprising nor rich enough to c;irry on his in- 

 dustry on his own initiative and with his own resources. He is a mere labourer, and his 

 employer is always some well-to-do person with commercial instincts, who expects an adequate 

 total net return for his money and trouble. The yield of katha is in any case small (barely 7^ 

 of the weight of the heart-wood used) and a single labourer can prepare only a small quantity 

 in a season. Thus the lessee must work on a large scale and employ a more or less considerable 

 gang. Such being the case, and our khair forests, as said before, not being rich in utilisable 

 material, a season's operations necessarily require a large area of such forest. If to this we 

 add the fact that khair is a very slow grower, it becomes obvious that in order to give a single 

 gang constant employment (a sine qua non for systematic and effective work), we must pro- 

 vide it with a very extensive area. If, for instance, khair takes thirty years to attain a suffi- 

 cient size for the katha-boiler's purpose, a single gang will require for itself thirty times the 

 area it would work over in one year. It is failure to appreciate this very obvious condition 

 that is responsible for the present very unfavourable position of the industry. 



4. It is thus obvious that a katha-boiling circle, i.e., an area sufficient to give constant 

 occupation to a single gang of boilers, must be a working unit entirely distinct from felling 

 series or a working circle composed of felling series. Indeed, in view of our very limited 

 resources in workable khair, it is possible that a single katha-boiling circle may extend beyond 

 the limits of a single Division. 



5. The establishment of katha-boiling circles, however, postulates the following previous 

 knowledge : 



(i) We must know the greatest distance from their camp to which khair was will go for 

 their wood. This will give us the maximum area that can be adopted for one season's opera- 

 tions. 



(ii) The minimum outturn of katha that, at ruling prices, will satisfy a lessee must be 

 ascertained. It is evident that the area under (i) must contain at least a sufficient 

 number of available khair trees to produce this minimum quantity. The word " available " 

 above is used advisedly to include all trees of sufficient size for katha manufacture, which are 

 not required for timber. 



(iii) The minimum specified under (ii) cannot be calculated unless by previous 

 careful experiment or survey, as the case may be, we know (a) the approximate number 

 of khair trees at the disposal of the katha-boiler, (6) the approximate quantity of heart-wood 

 contained on an average in each tree, and (c) the percentage of yield of katha obtained 

 from a given weight of heart-wood. 



(iv) We must have determined approximately the respective ages at which khair seedlings 

 and coppice shoots attain in these parts the average girth suitable for the katha-boiler. This 

 information will indicate the number of coupes (areas assigned to successive years) to be 

 included in a single circle. 



(v) The girth at the base, after attaining which khair, as a rule, ceases to throw up coppice 

 shoots, must be known. It is evident that if most of the trees of the minimum size required 

 by the katha-boiler have necessarily passed the limit of coppicing age, work after a single 

 rotation will become impossible, except a new generation of trees can with certainty and at 

 little cost be raised from seed. 



