SALEM FORESTS. 113 



APPENDIX (F). 



SALEM FORESTS. 



I have the honour to submit, for the information of Govern- 

 ment, the following brief report of operations in the forests of 

 Salem for the year 1859-60. 



2. On several occasions I visited the Kotapati jungles with 

 the officers of the Eailway Co., for the purpose of supplying 

 sleepers to the Madras line from Tripatore to Salem. 



3. I believe there are now few contractors under engagement 

 to the Eailway Co. ; and as these men were not cutting quick 

 enough to meet the immense demand, the company was obliged 

 to purchase sleepers from persons who would supply them even 

 with four or five at a time, and consequently I was overwhelmed 

 with applications from petty contractors, so that the peons were 

 not able to mark trees with sufficient rapidity, and I had no 

 alternative but to allow these men to cut in the jungles with 

 little control* over them. 



4. At first (1858), the amount of rejected sleepers was above 

 15 per cent., but latterly the woodcutters got into the way of cut- 

 ting those trees only that are fit for sleepers. On looking over 

 the statements, I find the average rate of rejected sleepers now is 

 5 per cent.f 



5. The trees marked by the forest peons were all approved by 

 the officers of the Eailway Co. ; these Were mostly venge, acha, 

 kalli, kadukai, karu-v§ng§, karungalli, and vel-venge (p. 77). 



6. The method of cutting is still without judgment, and great 

 waste of timber is the consequence. A tree is marked by a forest 

 peon, registered as containing four sleepers, and given over to 

 the woodcutter who fells the tree, and may perhaps adze it into 

 one sleeper. As the woodcutter pays nothing to Government for 

 the timber, he cares little whether the tree will cut into one or 



* i. e., Comparatively. — H. C. 



t The diminished ratio of rejected sleepers, from 20 per cent, to 5 per 

 cent., is satisfactory. — H. 0. 



h2 



