THE KHAM TAHSIL SYSTEM. 121 



generally too poor to pay the profits of middlemen, purchase their 

 produce directly from the forest, and cut and remove it themselves 

 at seasons when they and their cattle are free from labour in the 

 fields. To prevent over-cutting, the forest should be divided into 

 blocks, which are closed and opened in rotation. Under the 

 strictest supervision a certain amount of damage to the forest is 

 inevitable, and hence as soon as the demand becomes large enough 

 to require and pay for more intensive management and to create 

 a class of regular dealers, the system must be abandoned for one 

 that gives greater control to the conservancy establishment over 

 the exploitation of the forest. Nevertheless, until the trade in 

 timber and firewood has obtained a very high development, it will 

 generally be found advantageous to retain some form of the license 

 system for the disposal of the very small wood which is of too low 

 a value to bear long carriage. Two simple systems applicable in 

 this case are those of tickets of fixed value, valid respectively only 

 for the day of issue and for a month. The former leaves less room 

 for fraud, but requires the establishment of vending stations on 

 every line of export. Tickets valid for a whole month may be is- 

 sued from a single central office. Such tickets are used with great 

 success at Naini Tal, where they are made of brass, are consecu- 

 tively numbered, and authorize the holder to remove head-loads of 

 small firewood, of which, owing to the distance he has to travel, he 

 cannot take out more than one a day. Infraction of the condi- 

 tions under which the tickets are issued render the holder liable 

 to forfeiture of his ticket, without prejudice to punishment under 

 the law. 



The license or permit system, in some form or other, prevails, as 

 is to be expected, over more than half the forests of the empire. 



Section II. — The Kham Tahsil System. 



In this system the would-be purchaser may enter the forest and 

 cut and collect whatever he pleases within the authorised classes of 

 produce, and he pays for what he carries away and obtains a pass 

 for it only after he has taken it out of the forest and reaches a 

 station where the money is levied and such pass issued. The 

 system can of course be adopted only in forests from which there 

 is a limited number of outlets. Such are forests situated in a 

 mountainous country from which everything must pass out by the 

 valleys, or forests lying behind a range of hills which are crossed 

 by only a few passes, or remote forests for which the main highway 

 to populous centres consists of one or a few large rivers. A very 

 great disadvantage of this system, which is inseparable from the 



