28 PRACTICAL FOREST MANAGEMENT. 



produces valuable sal forests on the higher and older alluvium, the 

 lower and newer plains being covered with miscellaneous forest or 

 grass. 



Apart from a few small patches of forest in the Jhansi division 

 to the south of the Gangetic plain, the United Provinces forests 

 .are confined to these four geological formations, the recent deposits 

 of the Tarai and Bhabar and Plains the Tertiary Siwaliks, the 

 Precembrain sedimentary rocks, and the Archean granites and 

 gneisses. A branch of research which is receiving increasing 

 attention is the influence of the geology on the distribution of 

 different forest types, and some interesting examples have already 

 baen established. The distribution of forest types on the several 

 river plateaux of the Bhabar have been mentioned above, again, 

 we find thab the main boundary fault simultaneously limits the 

 distribution, of the Siwalik rocks and of the sal forests, on the 

 Himalayan rocks a well grown area of *al is nowhere to be found. 

 The primary factors that influence the distribution of forest type a 

 (neglecting for the moment altitude and aspect) are depth of soil, 

 texture and above all moisture content. But these primary factors 

 are undoubtedly intimately connected with the geology, to such an 

 extent that the geology is often an ultimate deciding factor. In 

 the hills the influence of geology is not so clearly traceable since 

 altitude is also important but there are indications that chir pine 

 tends to occupy quartzites, the oaks develop bast on the slates and 

 limestones, the deodar on the granites and so on. 



A striking but not unexpected phenomenon is the extraordinary 

 improvement in the soil by fira protection, as shown by the great 

 improvement of tb.3 quality class. Thus in the chi>- pine forests 

 in the Almora district which have been successfully fire protected 

 for several decades, we find that while the old crop is poor quality 

 III, the young crop on the same area is quality I. This would 

 follow Sshimper's theory, since the monsoon rain is now conserved 

 and the soil keeps moist whereas formerly the rain ran off in 

 torrents. This phenomenon is almost universal in all the older 



