1906 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



187 



impossible. They believe the cattle 

 break up the needles with their hoofs, 

 keep the grass down, and do not pack 

 and harden the soil because the steep 

 hillsides tend to prevent their yarding 

 long in one place. When the under- 

 story of young growth is complete a 

 total clearance of the seed trees takes 

 place. Some officers believe that a few 

 of these trees should be left as an in- 

 surance in case of fire. Quite recently 



reason is sometimes given why these 

 insurance seed trees should not be left. 

 They fear that in localities where elec- 

 tric storms are frequent these scatter- 

 ing seed trees would attract the light- 

 ning and be the cause of forest fires. 



To give a more exact idea of the 

 condition of the forest during and af-. 

 ter regeneration two plots are de- 

 scribed below. These were located by 

 the writer in fairly average forest, al- 



Fig. 4. Result of fire protection commenced in 1890 and seed felling made in 1894. 

 Five to ten chir pine seed trees are left on each acre. 



a large area of completed reproduction 

 was destroyed by fire and now the only 

 means to replace it is by costly artifi- 

 cial reproduction. Had they retained 

 only the two seed trees per acre, in the 

 course of 20 years the area would 

 probably have been completely re- 

 stocked. Even if no fire takes place 

 there are always the small blanks 

 caused by the removal of the seed trees 

 which ousrht to be filled. A curious 



though they are undoubtedly above the 

 average for any large area. One plot 

 was measured under the direction of 

 the writer, while the Indian Forest 

 Service kindy gathered the data for 

 the other. ( )ne plot of 20 acres was 

 in the Dhmich Block, Jaunsar Forest, 

 which was closed to fire in 1890. The 

 seed felling was made in [894 (see 

 fig. 5 ) . The final felling had not yet 

 taken place, and in April, 1905, there 



