WORKING-PLANS. 1 1 5 



of the forest. As has been already said, we cannot 

 trust to numbers of young trees, for if these grow 

 in clumps, only one in many of them can ever reach 

 maturity. 



Several * working-plans have been circulated 

 among Indian forest officers, and of these, Mr 

 Ribbentrop's working-plan of Kalu Tope in the 

 Punjab Himalayas, although dealing only with 

 one small block, furnishes a mass of detail in 

 elucidation of the method pursued, which would 

 be of great assistance to the inexperienced in 

 preparing a working-plan. The term " reducing 

 factor," employed by him in stock-taking, has been 

 rendered "form figure " in these pages. 



But the Indian forest officer may frequently 

 with justice demur, that working-plans based on 

 the theory of improving our forests up to their 

 highest capabilities, and of utilising all their yield, 

 is not always applicable to Indian forests, in the 

 present relation of working costs to market value 

 of timber. There is a general assumption that 

 our forests have been subjected to draughts upon 

 their resources in excess of their capabilities ; but 

 this appears to be true only of some few classes 

 of timber which have been in excessive demand, 

 and of which the area was in no recent period 

 large, or which are found only in mixed forests, 

 in which other classes of timber preponderate, for 



