GENERAL REMARKS. 451 



A sufficient supply of water should always accompany the men. 

 In many parts of the country the men would take out most of their 

 own supply with them in gourds. Parched gram may be distri- 

 buted amongst the men, and if there is any probability of their 

 being kept out a long time, sufficient quantities of flour, salt and 

 dal should be sent out with them. 



When a conflagration has been got under, small parties of men 

 should be at once sent round the perimeter of the burnt area to put 

 out all burning trees, branches and other fragments, which are 

 likely to endanger the safety of the surrounding forest. 



V. General. 



There is very little more left to say regarding fire-conservancy. 

 The first essential to success is to gain and retain the good will of 

 the people ; with it the most elaborate and costly measures will 

 prove futile, for nothing is easier than to fire a forest without any 

 fear of detection. With the sympathies of the people on the side 

 of the forest staff, although they may not willingly acquiesce in, 

 the restrictions which necessarily follow in the wake of fire-con- 

 servancy, cheap, often gratuitous, and spontaneous, help will be 

 obtained in fire-tracing and putting out conflagrations and in the 

 prevention and detection of offences. These sympathies may be 

 won by small concessions, made from time to time and in no hag- 

 gling spirit, which concessions cost the forest proprietor little or 

 nothing and hurt the forest still less. It is essential that the staff 

 in charge of a forest under protection from fire should possess per- 

 fect tact and temper. 



We must here draw attention to the great importance of com- 

 piling a fire-conservancy map for every forest under protection. 

 Such a map should show every fire-trace. When a trace follows a 

 road or watercourse, it should be represented on the proper side of 

 it. Not unfrequently a fire-trace is taken across a road and espe- 

 cially a winding watercourse, in order to save distance or to get 

 into grass that is easier to burn, or to utilise a natural barrier of 

 evergreen bushes, &c. As a permanent record for constant useful 

 reference all such vantage points and lines, as they are discovered, 

 should be noted on the map. On the map should also be marked 

 by distinctive colours or symbols all other barriers, natural or 

 artificial, which require little or no clearing to serve as effective 

 fire-breaks or which, although of no real use as fire-breaks, offer 

 special facilities for counterfiring. The prevailing directions of 

 the wind during the course of the fire season, especially during the 

 most dangerous part of it, should be indicated by means of arrows. 



