254 FOREST LIFE AND SPORT IN INDIA 
solve the difficulty by the establishment of forest 
villages, each with a large area of forest set aside 
for its use; and within this area the settlers made 
their own arrangements for individual ownership of 
numbered trees, for the sowing of the insect crop 
and reaping of the resin harvest, and received in 
remuneration a proportion of the lac they had 
gathered. It is a system that, when perfected by 
experience, will have laid the foundation of a new 
forest industry over a large tract of country hitherto 
unexploited for this purpose, and thus conduce both 
to increased prosperity in the country-side and to a 
considerable improvement in the forest revenues. 
From Raipur we went to Bilaspur, a most fasci- 
nating district, where was most vividly exemplified 
the effect of well-wooded hills upon the perennial 
streams that rippled through the country, and also 
the results that might follow on excessive grazing. 
Fortunately, here the cattle of the agriculturist do 
not require to enter save in times of stress, but the 
professional grazier and breeder asserts his claims to 
ruining the forest for his convenience or profit ; it is, 
happily, easier to deal effectively with such com- 
mercial enterprises than with legitimate demands 
for agricultural requirements, even when these are 
excessive, else were the State forests but grazing- 
grounds for the benefit of the members of a lucrative 
profession. 
The Bilaspur forests are ideal as a resort for the 
sportsman who leads the simple life; there are many 
tigers and panthers and some bison. The swamp- 
deer here grow immense antlers, while their habits 
approximate so closely to those of the simbhar, and 
