114 FOREST LIFE AND SPORT IN INDIA 
Fortunately, my dealings with these men in past 
years had given them sufficient confidence to follow 
me in my transfer to Oudh, and from this side there 
was not much difficulty; that lay rather in closing 
accounts with contractors and subordinates, a task 
which occupied much time, and revealed some trans- 
actions almost humorous in their impertinence. 
When this distasteful work was completed, it 
remained to make for the area a regular working 
plan, fixing for a term of years its treatment and its 
yield; and in this work I first made the acquaintance 
of an Indian Forest Officer, Mr. Keshavanand, a 
man who, though delicate in health, never spared 
himself in the service, and who, being of a studious 
nature, had built securely on the basis of a short 
scientific training received at the forest school at 
Dehra Dun. To enumerate all the trees of two 
species in three-age classes over nearly 150 square 
miles of forest is a lengthy undertaking, but when it 
was finished a good foundation was furnished for 
determining the amount of timber to be yearly 
removed, and it was satisfactory to find that it 
totalled in number of trees about four times those 
previously felled, and in volume even more than this 
would indicate ; for now sawing was carried out in 
the fellings as well as logging, in order to utilize the 
inferior stuff that came under the axe. 
The promise conveyed in the working plan of a 
yearly outturn for a fixed period of years was 
sufficient inducement to the Rohilkhand and 
Kumaon Railway to construct a branch of its line 
from Maildni to Dudua, and this new departure 
finally insured the success of a change in system 
