August 12, 1896.] 



Garden and Forest. 



329 



The rural beauty of the undulating verdurous landscape is 

 undisturbed by suburban "improvements" of any kind, and 

 many of the dwellings are the solidly built, picturesque stone 

 farm-houses of a century ago, now the homes of wealthy citi- 

 zens. Perhaps, nowhere near a large city in the east can a 

 more satisfying trolley ride be enjoyed. The park itself is 

 planted with taste. The wide walks and avenues follow grace- 

 ful lines, and groups of flowering shrubs and trees and well- 

 kept turf are established. An avenue of Pin Oak-trees will in 

 time make a striking feature, and stretching away on either 

 side are the beautiful Chelten Hills. 



Riverton, N.J. IV. Tricker. 



The Forest. 



The Burma Teak Forests.- 



-II. 



FIRST EXPLORATION OF THE FORESTS. 



T^ ARLY in February 1 set out on my first tour into the forests, 

 *—' from which I did not return until late in May, at the com- 

 mencement of the rains. The province of Pegu, as then con- 

 stituted, comprised the valleys of two rivers running parallel 

 from north to south. I went up the Sitang valley as tar as the 

 town of Toungoo, and after crossing the hills which separate 

 these valleys, returned by the larger of the two valleys, that of 

 the Iraauddi River. The Teak-producing forests are on the 

 hills on either side of these rivers, and I explored these hills, as 

 far as time permitted, in different directions, f have said that 

 the Teak-tree forms a small proportion of the forest. Its com- 

 panions are Bamboos and a large variety of other trees, at that 

 time none of them possessing any market value. That was 

 forty years ago when the country was thinly inhabited. Now, 

 with a population of three millions, with a number of large 

 and wealthy towns, several kinds besides Teak are used for 

 building and other purposes, and the trade in Bamboos has 

 become considerable. But so large is the forest area that the 

 open country in both valleys is readily supplied from the out- 

 skirts. From the remoter forest tracts it does not yet pay to 

 bring away anything but Teak. The other kinds, with few ex- 

 ceptions, are without value now as they were forty years ago. 

 With admiration I beheld the magnificent stems of Termi- 

 nalia, Anogeinus, Lagerstrcemia and other trees, with clean 

 cylindrical boles branchless to a great height ; most of these 

 trees with beautiful dark-colored heart-wood. These trunks 

 would yield huge beams and magnificent planking, and I 

 found it difficult to understand that Teak should be the only 

 marketable timber. When f asked my Burmese companions 

 to explain, they laughed and pointed to a large Terminalia 

 which the storm had blown down. A magnificent piece of 

 timber nearly 100 feet long, the heart-wood dark purple, 

 beautifully mottled, as if made to furnish the most elegant 

 furniture. " Next year, should the master come here, he will 

 find this tree a long heap of brown mold, unless, indeed, the 

 jungle fires should have destroyed it." And this saying of 

 theirs was afterward invariably confirmed by my own experi- 

 ence. It is chiefly the durability of Teak timber in a tropical 

 climate which gives it the high market value it possesses. Teak 

 has other valuable qualities besides durability. Among tim- 

 bers it holds the place which the diamond maintains among 

 precious stones and gold among metals. There are a few 

 other trees in Burma with heart-wood as durable as that of 

 Teak, but the wood of these kinds is so hard and heavy that 

 they can only be worked with difficulty, and the timber 

 cannot be floated. Teak is easily worked, does not warp or 

 split, takes a beautiful polish, and, if properly treated, floats 

 without difficulty. 



EARLY WORKING PLANS. 



To establish a regular system in a forest of that description, 

 where Teak was the only marketable tree, obviously was a 

 singularly difficult, nay, at first sight, an impossible task. 

 Each Teak-tree cut would make room for valueless trees of 

 other kinds, while less seed would be shed and consequently 

 fewer Teak seedlings would spring up. Under these circum- 

 stances one plan only was feasible — to cut sparingly, to select 

 the trees to be cut with the greatest care, and simultaneously 

 to increase the proportion of Teak in the forest by planting. 

 These essential points I kept in view from the very beginning, 

 though, as regards planting, it was not possible to take action 

 upon a sufficiently large scale, until several years later. 



Cuttings, however, had to be made in order to produce 

 money. I knew perfectly well that unless the forests could be 

 made a source of annual net revenue to the Government, 

 regular forest management was not likely to be maintained. 

 These cuttings, however, I was determined should be regu- 



lated by a well-considered plan, the object of which would be 

 the maintenance and not the exhaustion of the forests. In 

 order to prepare such a plan it was necessary to know the 

 rate of growth of the Teak-tree, the quantity of growing timber 

 in the forests, and the proportion of the different age classes 

 in each district. In 1856 very little was known regarding the 

 rate of growth of Teak. The timber o£ that tree has well- 

 defined concentric rings, marked like the annual rings of Oak, 

 Ash and other kinds, by a belt of numerous large pores. 

 Subsequent researches have proved that these concentric rings 

 actually represent a year's growth, the dry season being the 

 period of rest corresponding to the winter of temperate cli- 

 mates. In 1856, however, this had not been fully established. 

 Fortunately there were at the Botanic Gardens in Calcutta and 

 in gardens elsewhere Teak-trees the age of which was known. 

 These I measured, and these data, together with what was 

 known regarding the rate of growth of the Teak-tree in Bom- 

 bay and on the island of Java, enabled me to form a prelimi- 

 nary though very imperfect idea regarding the rate of growth 

 of this tree. 



The growing stock of timber and the proportion of the differ- 

 ent age classes constituting this growing stock, would ordi- 

 narily be determined by the examination of numerous sample 

 areas, carefully selected, so as to represent the different types of 

 forest. This plan, I soon found, was out of the question. 

 The hilly country, where the Teak-producing tracts were 

 chiefly found, was of enormous extent, several thousand 

 square miles, stocked with forests extremely variable in their 

 character. Large areas of forest without Teak intervened 

 between the Teak-producing tracts, and in these the propor- 

 tion of Teak varied extremely. No topographical survey of 

 the country had been made and no maps existed to guide me 

 in determining the area of the Teak-producing forests. The only 

 guide I had in that respect at that time.and during the greater part 

 of my service in Burma, were rough sketch maps of the forests, 

 based upon route surveys with prismatic compass and chain, 

 which I prepared while exploring the forests with the aid of 

 native assistants whom I had trained for this work. Yet it 

 was necessary, within the short time I had at my disposal 

 before the rains set in, about three months and a half, to 

 collect sufficient data to enable me to frame a preliminary 

 working plan. Hence I set to work and took in hand suc- 

 cessively each forest district which lay near the route which I 

 had fixed upon. Each district was traversed in different direc- 

 tions, and on my march I counted all Teak-trees seen within a 

 certain distance on either side of the track pursued. In form- 

 ing forest districts I was guided by geographical features and 

 the configuration of the ground. The hills which separate the 

 two main rivers are drained by numerous smaller streams, 

 which eventually join either the Sitang or the Iraauddi River. 

 The catchment area of one of these streams was, as a rule, 

 assigned to one forest district. It took me some time to select, 

 among my Burmese followers, a staff of competent men to 

 assist me in these valuation surveys. When I had organized 

 matters and had myself made sufficient progress in the Bur- 

 mese language to enable me to carry on my exploration work 

 in the forest without an interpreter, for the interpreter I had 

 brought from Rangoon could not stand the hard work in the 

 tropical heat of the Burma forests, I had already examined 

 several districts, so that I had formed a general idea regarding 

 the character of the forests before I commenced my valuation 

 surveys. In the five districts which remained an area aggre- 

 gating 3,840 acres was surveyed, and on this area were found 

 2,423 Teak-trees of the first and 2,503 trees of the second class. 

 It should here be mentioned that in Burma the lumbermen 

 had always been in the habit of measuring the trees by girth, 

 and not by diameter, and this practice I adopted without hesi- 

 tation, though the results are less accurate than those obtained 

 by diameter measurement. The unit of measure among Bur- 

 mans at that time was not the foot, but the cubit. This also I 

 adopted, and accepted it as equivalent to eighteen inches. The 

 first question which presented itself to me was to select a mini- 

 mum size, below which no tree should, as a rule, be felled, 

 and this I fixed at four cubits, or six feet, in girth. Hence all 

 trees above that size were termed first-class, while second-class 

 trees were those between three and four cubits, or between 

 four feet six inches and six feet, in girth. The data which I 

 had collected regarding the rate of growth of the Teak-tree led 

 me to the conclusion that the mean age of trees in girth three 

 cubits, or four feet six inches, was thirty-nine years, and that 

 of trees four cubits, or six feet, in girth was sixty-two years. 

 Hence the conclusion seemed justified that the smallest trees 

 of the second class would attain first-class size within a period 

 of twenty-three years. Later researches have shown that these 

 results were too favorable, and that in the present condition of 



