116 



CHAPTER IV.— THE WORKING-PLAN REPORT. 



General remarks.— It is desirable, especially in India 

 where frequent changes in the forest staff are unavoidable, 

 that working-plan reports should follow generally a fixed 

 pattern. Uniformity not alone lessens the labour of mas- 

 tering the contents of individual reports, but without it 

 systematic scrutiny of the plans is well nigh impossible. 

 The fact that each report deals with essentially different 

 local conditions is no impediment to grouping and discussing 

 together, under suitable headings and in logical sequence, 

 the various subjects. 



The general order to be followed in working-plan 

 reports is indicated below. This is the arrangement pre- 

 scribed at present by the Government ; and it is only neces- 

 sary to add that each report, while containing .sufficient 

 information to enable the soundness of its provisions to be 

 tested and the ideas of its compiler to be followed, should 

 be as brief and as simply written as possible. Lengthy 

 descriptions and discussions of sylvicultural questions, mathe- 

 matical calculations and complicated tables of statistics 

 should, as far as possible, be avoided. The information 

 deduced from statistical tables can generally be explained 

 in a few words, and the application of mathematical formulae 

 in connection with Indian forests is liable to lead to 

 erroneous conclusions. Some plans have never been applied, 

 owing to the neglect of such rules. These monuments of 

 misdirected energy represent, however, a large amount of 

 labour, and, it must be added, a very considerable amount of 

 expense, all of which, with the exception of the experience 

 so bought, has been wasted. 



Arrangement of the subjects.— A working- plan is a forest 

 regulation or 'prescription deducep from facts ; _ and, in 

 order that the prescriptions may be intelligible it is neces- 

 sary that the manner in which they have been arrived at 

 should be explained and th« facts from which they have 

 been deduced stated. The working-plan report, therefore, 

 naturally resolves itself into two parts ; the first, containing 

 a summary of the facts on which the proposals are based, 

 and the second, a statement of these proposals— the working- 

 plan proper — accompanied by whatever explanations are 

 necessary in order to show why they have been framed. 



I 2 



