FORESTRY. 



EDITED BY DR B. E. FERNOW, 



Director of the New York School of Forestry, Cornell University, assisted by Dr. John C. Gifford of the same 



institution. 



It takes 30 years to grow a tree and 30 minutes to cut it down and destroy it. 



FORESTRY ADMINISTRATION IN INDIA. 



WILLARD W. CLARK. 



Of the Philippine Forestry Service. 



PART II. 



The advisability of a systematic working 

 of the Indian forests had frequently been 

 urged during the earliest days of forest 

 administration, but until Sir Diedrich Bran- 

 dis arrived in Burma no practical steps were 

 taken toward this end. Brandis set himself 

 the task of ascertaining by means of numer- 

 ous linear valuation surveys, the available 

 growing stock in the forests under his 

 charge and trained his associates to help 

 him in the work. On the basis of the esti- 

 mates thus formed and by the analyses of 

 numerous stumps and logs, he calculated 

 the annual possibility and framed prelimi- 

 nary working plans. They were plans 

 drawn up on somewhat general lines, but 

 were prepared with extreme caution and 

 hardly ever erred on the side of over ex- 

 ploitation. These plans were used as guides 

 for many years and were deviated from 

 only when more detailed inquiries proved 

 that any particular forest tract was able to 

 produce a larger yield than had previously 

 been supposed. 



The general protection of the Indian for- 

 ests was, at the outset, a matter of great 

 difficulty, as the people had first to be taught 

 that causing injury to the forest constituted 

 an offense. In Burma it was quite usual 

 to fell trees to collect cigarette wrappers. 

 Areas amounting to thousands of square 

 miles were everywhere annually destroyed 

 by axe and fire for the sake of reaping one 

 or perhaps 2 crops of cereals. Cattle and 

 goats were grazed unchecked and forests 

 were burned over to provide more extensive 

 grazing grounds. Boundaries of forest 

 property, though frequently shown on the 

 map and sometimes indicated on the 

 ground, had no particular meaning ; and 

 the forests inside the boundaries were mal- 

 treated in the same manner as those out- 

 side. 



Fire protection is the most important and 

 difficult problem with which the Indian 

 forester has to deal. The nature of the cli- 

 mate favors the spread of fire. During the 

 hot, rainless season the forests are filled 

 with dry leaves, herbs and grass, and be- 

 come as inflammable as tinder. This state 

 of the forests is bad, but the foresters have 

 also to oppose the ancient native custom of 



firing grass lands and forests alike in order 

 to clear away rank vegetation and make 

 place for a new grass crop. In certain 

 provinces almost general conflagrations are 

 the chief reason for the barren character 

 of so many of our Indian hill ranges and 

 are more closely connected with famine 

 than is usually supposed. An unfounded 

 disbelief in the destructiveness of forest 

 fires has also had to be opposed. It has 

 been repeatedly argued that good forests 

 exist and produce marketable timber which 

 from ancient times have been overrun by 

 jungle fires. 



The annual cost of fire protection is at 

 present a little above $75,000 and amounts 

 to less than 2 per cent, of the gross revenue. 

 The work of fire protection begins early in 

 the season with the cutting of grass, herbs 

 and bushes on the fire lanes. When the ma- 

 terial cut has become dry enough to burn 

 it is burned at night. 



Not only has the tree growth been bene- 

 fited by fire protection, but the supply of 

 grass and fodder has been increased, which 

 is a great advantage to the surrounding 

 agricultural population. The natives have 

 even begun to appreciate this and have 

 turned out en masse, unsolicited in some 

 cases, to protect the government forest 

 property against approaching jungle fires. 

 The denser vegetation which follows fire 

 protection almost immediately has had a 

 most beneficial influence in counteracting 

 erosion and preventing land slips and sud- 

 den floods ; and the beds of rivulets from 

 fire protected forests flow in narrower and 

 better defined channels. 



The nomadic and semi-nomadic habits of 

 a great proportion of the people of India 

 present another difficulty with which the 

 Indian forest officers have to deal. From 

 ancient times the natives have grazed their 

 cattle, sheep and goats on all waste lands 

 and forests wherever they chose. Since 

 reserves were established one of the most 

 important questions has alv/ays been to fix 

 the kind and number of cattle to be grazed 

 on each forest area. Grass being a com- 

 modity largely needed, the forests must, 

 to a great extent, be managed with the ob- 

 ject of growing grass kept in view, and 

 almost all working plans are framed in 

 accordance with the grazing requirements 

 of the country. Fire protection and closures 

 against grazing have, on several occasions 

 of fodder famines, proved a great boon to 



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