CONSERVATORS’ WORK 115 
which liberated the Forest Officer from the duties of 
lumbering, of conveying the timber to market, or of 
milling it, and gave him some time to devote to the 
scientific working of the forest. I have been informed 
that this forest railway is the best-paying branch 
of the system to which it belongs, for it now serves 
the timber and grain trade from Nepal; and as 
similar railways have since been constructed to tap 
the forests and villages of Bahraich, Gonda, and 
Gorakhpur, touching the Nepal border at other 
points, and have been extended gradually to form 
a complete system in a tract of country hitherto 
neglected, there seems good reason to believe that 
my information was correct. So encouraging was 
the success that followed the issue of the working 
plan for the Kheri forests during the next few 
years that plans were compiled for the whole of the 
workable forest areas of Oudh. The period covered 
by these plans has long since expired, but they 
have been since followed by others that are similar, 
but even more exact and more effective, because at 
the time of their compilation more detailed records 
of the past were available as to the rate of growth 
of the timber, as to the reproduction of the species, 
as to varying effects of soil and locality—ain short, 
with regard to all those items of local knowledge 
that are essential for the progress of Indian silvi- 
culture. 
The next matter that claimed attention was 
demarcation. In consequence of the opening up of 
the area, cultivation was pressing on the forest 
boundary, which in many places was intricate or 
even disputed, and consequently far from being 
