i8 
6. Tulloh Morah is an oblong block of well wooded hills, the boundaries of which 
will follow the base of the range leaving out the flat land suitable for cultivation 
along the coast line. With the little I was able to see of this, I should not like to 
make a guess as to the area. 
7. As regards your instructions that I should suggest new Reserves, or addi- 
tions to existing ones, there is some difficulty. There has been no survey and 
-consequently it is impossible to say what proportion of the District is already 
reserved. One thing is certain and that is that the rough estimate as given in the 
District Officer’s Report for 1898 is a very long way below the mark. Pangkore 
Island for instance which with the exception of village sites is practically all Forest 
Reserves, is put down at 1,250 acres. The total area of Pangkore Island which is 
-about 4 miles long cannot be less than 5,000 acres, probably more, and the village 
sites and cultivated portions do not I should say represent one-fifth of the whole, so 
that the Reserve must be more like 4,000 acres. 
8. There is also another matter to be considered in suggesting any considerable 
addition and that is the system it is intended to pursue in the future as regards these 
Reserved Areas. The original idea of prohibiting wood-cutting within the areas 
known as Forest Reserves was for the purpose of allowing time for them to recover 
by natural means the effects of severe and indiscriminate cutting in the past, and as 
soon as that had been accomplished to again open them for working, one or more at 
a time, in rotation, but without satisfactory maps and an intimate knowledge of the 
area and contents of each Reserve it is impossible to formulate a working plan or to 
say when the time will have arrived to put this intention into effect. 
9. The whole of the Dindings is practically forest. It appears from the District 
Officer’s Report that the Revenue from Forest produce in 1888 was over $15,000 and 
represented 70% of the Revenue of the whole District. The population is not sup- 
posed to be increasing and so far as 1 can see no appreciable increase in cultivation 
has taken place during the past ten or twelve years. Under these circumstances it is 
important that the Forest should be managed so as to derive as much Revenue as is 
■consistent with their being maintained in a state of efficiency, which is to say that the 
quantity cut each year must not on the whole exceed the annual normal increase. 
10. If I may venture to offer a suggestion it is this, seeing that the greater 
portion of the Dindings is forest and that neither population nor agriculture shows 
any appreciable increase the whole of the Crown Forests, both reserved and unreserved 
should be considered from a business point of view and supervised by one Forest 
Staff, to do this the Forest Guards would have to be increased in number and sta- 
tioned in different parts of the District, preferably in the immediate vicinity of the 
principal Reserves. Each guard should be kept informed of all licences issued for 
his part of the District and it should be his duty to see that the produce removed 
corresponds with the licence both as regards kind and quantity. It would also be his 
duty to arrest any person cutting or removing without a licence jungle produce from 
any Crown Forest whether reserved or not. This would in my opinion be simpler for 
the Officer in charge, and more economicial and effectual than keeping one staff for 
reserved and another for unreserved forest, and that without in any way rendering 
the protection of the Reserves less effective than at present. On the contrary, my 
experience in Penang has been that nine times out of ten it is professional wood-cutters 
who take out Passes that get into the Reserves and it is most important for the For- 
est Guards to know who have licences and where they are working. 
11. The principal distinction I would draw between reserved and unreserved 
Forests in this District is that no portion of the former should at any time be granted 
for agricultural purposes, while the latter is available for that purpose should a 
demand for land arise. For the present, and probably for some years yet no cutting 
should be allowed within the Reserves but the time will come when a considerable 
Revenue should be derived from these Reserves. 
12. In one of the papers you sent me to see I noticed that His Honour the 
Officer Administering the Government considers that one-fifth of the District should 
be Reserves, and I think that with the two new portions now to be added, the total 
area will not fall far short of that; but in the absence of any survey it must be more 
or less guess work. 
I have, &c., 
C. CURTIS, 
Assistant Superintendent of Forests. 
