TEAK PLANTATIONS. 323 



to Ks. 6000, and I would strongly recommend that it be sanc- 

 tioned. 



5. The collector of Malabar is of opinion that the returns will 

 equal the proposed grant ; further, that 120,000 trees can be 

 planted for the above sum. 



6. Of late years, the planting of new ground has not been car- 

 ried on to the extent it formerly was, consequent upon the 

 establishment being occupied in thinning the already existing 

 plantations (even these have not been sufficiently thinned), and 

 the demand for an increased establishment is most urgent. 



Order of Government. 



\bth January 1861. 

 The acting-conservator should at once revise the proposed 

 establishment, so as to make the supervising duly proportionate 

 to the working agency. The Government meanwhile sanctions 

 that now proposed. 



J. D. Boukdillon, 

 Sec. to Govt. 



Before leaving this subject, it ought to be stated that in 1854 

 Dr Falconer, in a Keport to the Bengal Government, inves- 

 tigated the causes of the failure of teak plantations in that 

 Presidency.* These may be briefly summed up under the follow- 

 ing:— 



" I am of opinion, that the over-crowding of the trees, by 

 close planting, was at the root of all the failures that have fol- 

 lowed the attempts at growing teak in plantations in Bengal." 

 . . . . " The tenacious compact nature of the alluvial soil is un- 

 favourable to the descent of tap-roots ; and the consequence is, 

 that the trees early acquire a tendency to throw out horizontal 

 roots close to the surface. These very frequently form buttresses 

 which rise up on the trunk, giving rise to what are called ' fluted 

 boles,' which lead to great waste in converting the timber into 

 squared logs." .... " Another fact of great import, as re- 

 gards the diminished vigour of the teak grown in Bengal, was 



* Records of Bengal Government, No. xxv. 



