396 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [December i, 1891 
Aa regards the forests set apart for the railway fuel 
supply betweea Mirigama aud Atnbepussa, the surveys, 
are still being made, but there has be< n unaocoantable 
delay in starting tho cbeuai. I bear that a block of 
land, some 200 acres in extent, lias be;n subdivided 
into a number of plots, and hope that tuis year at last 
the vfork will be tnken in hand. 
The opening and keeping open of boundarieB 
involves, aa may well be suppoaed, much di£Qoulty, 
±he total length already being no less than 1,180 miles. 
Mr. Broun desiderates straight boundaries for re- 
served forests. Enumeration surveys, that is the as- 
oertaining of the numbers of trees of different sizes, &c. 
in forest areas, are needed. We have already alluded 
to the disap'pointing results obtained from a small 
operation by Mr. Huddleston, and Mr. Broun thus 
comments on the astonishing figures : — 
If tlie enumerations are a good sample of the Trinco- 
malee forests, these are extremely poor, for first 
class trees (sound and unsound), which from the 
majority of the exploitable stock, do not amount to 
1 l-5th tree per acre. In spite of this small number of 
exploitable trees those of smaller classes are also ex- 
ceedingly scarce, the number of fourth class poles 
heing most scanty. The report speaks of one ot two 
" favoured nooksiwhere there ia some good stock, ebony 
being found fairly abundantly in one patch, while palai 
forma an alniost gregarious forest about one square 
mile in extent at a place not far from Kantalai. 
This shows that the Trinoomalee forests have been 
most severely overworked in former tipaes, and that 
they should be now dealt with with great care and 
caution* 
Alluding to proteotion of forests Mr. Broun 
states : — 
Headmen of villages are still supposed to carry out 
tho protective duties over the Government forests. 
They carry out their work well or fairly well in some 
places, but on the whole I think that the employment 
of unpaid headmen as forest police is a mistake, and 
that paid forest subordinates should gradually replace 
them as the forests become reserved. From my own 
experience I can say that I have come across both 
good and bad, several of the latter having so little 
knowledge of the forests they were supposed to guard 
that they had to keep villagers by ^them to show the 
way through the forest. 
It is somewhat sensational to find the European 
owners of estates charged with annexing Govern- 
ment forest. The report states : — 
One case deserves special mention, being one of 
considerable eneroachment on Crown iahd by the 
proprietors of Barra estate near Rakwana. Although 
the boundary was old and hard to follow, the land had 
remained in the ssme bands i'rom the time of purchase 
from the Crown, and the proprietor could not plead 
ignorance. After a preliminary inquiry in the Rak* 
wana Court the case was settled by composition, 
the sum paid being R694. Further encroachments 
are being made by certain estate proprietors, aud 
there is now one case onder report in the Kegalla 
District which, if proved, deserves severe punishment. 
It is added : — 
Several cases were made very diffioult to prove owing 
to the recent decision of the Supreme Court, that it 
must be proved that wood removed illicitly has been 
removed from Crown land. The decision appears to go 
against the spirit of the Ordiaance , for in section 72 
it is stat id that tho onus of the proof lies with the 
accused. Thi& is not dae to an accidental oversight 
on the part of legislators, who merely followed the 
example set in Continental Forest and Hunting Laws. 
In these, ov/ing to the facilities with which an offender 
can escape on account of the extent of the forest and 
the sequebtered position of the place where the offence 
has been committed, it has been laid down that the 
proof lies with the accused. 
The prevention of wasteful ohena cultivation re- 
quires vigilant attention. Direct encouragement, 
BB we noticed, has been given to such cultivation 
^ y tho abolition o£ the tax, the paragraph referring 
to the matter being as follows : — 
The Assistant Conservator, Babaragamuwa, complaitiB 
that owing to the abolition of the tiz on dry grain 
a ne.v impetus has been given to chena caltisation, 
and that this abolitioa removes the evidence ol Orowu 
right to the land, as no tax receipts will in future be 
issued. He suggests therefore that uo laud be granted 
by the Crown for chena cultivation without the culti- 
vator beinpr bound to drain it aud to put a boundary 
drain round it. This would not only preserve the 
evidence of Government right, but save i he land from 
losing all its top soil. The suggestion of the Assist- 
ant Conservator is, I think, a good one, but a land 
settlement allotting cbcnas to each village would be 
much more satisfactory. 
. Several officers complain that prosecutions against 
illicit chena cultivation are being far too leniently 
dealt with by magistrates, and that they and their 
subordinates are being disheartened by this treatment. 
There is no doubt that a fine of 60 cents for illicit 
cutting and burning of Government forest is a farce, 
and that it would bs much better to dismiss a case 
than to give the accused a distinct encouragement to 
go and do more damage. 
There are interesting details regarding tho natural 
reproduction o£ forest trees, too long to quote in 
full. The reference to the Southern Province ie, 
however, of special interest : — 
The Assistant Conservator complains of the reckless 
destruction of young growth by villagers, who cut 
everything, regardless of species, tor fence sticks and for 
sale to Indian dealers. 
That valuable plants should be out down for fence 
sticks is bad enough, but to devastate the forests 
to supply Indian dealers is a matter which re- 
quires stringent intervention. Mr. Broun is em- 
phatic in the enunciation of the principle that 
the proper treatment of ex'sting forest with re- 
ference to natural reproduction is the first 
duty of his department, aud not the formation 
of plantations of exotic or special native trees. 
He adds: — 
Wherever plantations are desirable they should, to 
my mind, be made ot considerable extent. Small 
plantations should be avoided, excepting for experimen- 
tal purposes, for the cost ot labour, supervision, and 
proteotion is much larger per acre tlian on a large 
plantation. 
The only plantations of any considerable extent now 
existing are the teak cbenas of the Btitticaloa district. 
These covered at the end of 1889 639 acres ; but no- 
thing was added during the ysar under report owing 
to the careless way with which grantees treated the 
plantations under their charge. Tiiey have now been 
ordered to take greater care of the seedlings and to 
make nurseries to supply vacancies. Tho Assistant 
Conservator has sent in a number of measurements 
taken in jtbe cbenas of Tumpalancboiai, Divilane, and 
Paluganawa. The results are interesting, inasmu^ is 
the average girth of the samples measured is as ^ jd 
as that of trees measured in Indian and Burman Ipia. i- 
tations. Nothing is said, however, as to whether the 
poles measured belong to the average class or whether 
they were dominant or suppressed, nor is anything 
mentioned about the height of the trees nor about 
the number per acre, This is important as the poles 
measured may have been standing isolated, and may 
have become developed in girth and in orowu and 
little in height. It will be noticed (see table, appendix 
A) that the plants measured show rapid growtti up to 
about four or five years of age, and that they suddenly 
fall ofi in mean annual increment. The cause of 
this is probably the iluk grass which springs up 
abundantly as soonas the cheuas are abandoned. In 
the case of the Divilane plantations, where the growth 
appears to be more vigorous, the growth ugain improves 
between the eighth and tenth years, probably owing 
to the formation of leaf canopy and consequent sup- 
pression of the grass. 
In the Western Province the jak gardens near Miri- 
gama have not yet been extended, but a block of 200 
ooroH baa been taken up and divided into plots to be 
