38 



CHAPTER IL— PRELIMINARY WORK. 



EBCONNAISSANCE OF THE AREA. 



Selection of the area to be dealt with. — The area under 

 forest management in a single locality generally includes 

 separate forests requiring difPerent cultural treatment, and, 

 not infrequently, forests of dififerent classes, — Reserved, Pro- 

 tected or Unclassed, — each, perhaps, demanding a different 

 system of management. All these areas may have, how- 

 ever, many points in common. They ordinarily supply the 

 same population or market with forest produce, the labour- 

 ers come from the same locality, the lines of export for all 

 are often the same, and the management and working are 

 supervised by the same establishment. It is, therefore, 

 generally advisable that the organisation of the whole area 

 of Government land under forest management in one locality 

 should be carried out simultaneously and be dealt with in a 

 single working-plan report.* Generally speaking it will be 

 convenient to deal with the whole area of a charge, such as 

 the Division, the Range, or, where the organisation is in- 

 complete, with an area likely in the future to form a single 

 range. It may be necessary in some instances to deal with 

 the forests in a portion of a range, and, owing to special cir- 

 cumstances often observable in India, in some cases it may 

 be advisable to extend the provisions of a single plan over 

 several ranges. 



^o^ 



There existed at one time some diSerence of opinion on this point in Europe. 

 Formerly, in France, each forest estate, bearing a distinct name either becanse of its 

 situation or its origin or the manner in which it was acquired by the State, was 

 separately organised under a Working-plan of its own. It has thus sometimes come 

 about that separate working-plans have been framed for adjacent State forests 

 in the same division or range, and, inveisely, there are instances in which a single 

 working.plan deals with forest areas in distinct administrative charges. Recently, 

 however, the tendency in France has been to adopt the practice followed in Germany, 

 where the whole forest area belonging to the State, or other one proprietor, included in 

 a single executive charge (that of a Bevier fbrster, Oherforster, Forst meister, et«., 

 equivalent to our Ranger) is dealt with in a single comprehensive working-plan. 



In India, up to the present, no uniform course has been followed in this respect. 

 In many oases each class of property (reserved or protected forest) has been separately 

 organised under a special plan, and in some instances areas burdened with rights 

 l'^^®r.°^®° " omitted from the pltin. In very few cases has what is now praotically 

 the European system of dealing with entire charges been followed. 



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