INDIAN FOREST RECORDS 
Vol. VII ] 1920 [ Part VIII. 
Afforestation of Ravine Lands in the Etawah District, 
United Provinces. 
BY 
E. A. SMYTHIES, I.F.S., 
Sylviculturist, United Provinces. 
PART I 
Introduction. 
I N order to appreciate the great possibilities and potential advantages 
of a wide scheme of afforestation in the plains of the United 
Provinces, a brief reference to the distribution of the existing forests 
of the Provinces compared to the population and principal centres of 
demand is necessary. The area of the Provinces (in round figures) is 
100,000 square miles, and the population about 47,000,000. The forest 
area is 7,000 square miles, or 7 per cent. This in itself by all standards 
is inadequate, and while the great bulk of the forests are concentrated 
in the sparsely inhabited hills or submontane tract, the principal cities 
and manufacturing centres, such as Lucknow, Cawnpore, etc., are far 
removed from the forest tracts, and the great densely populated Gan- 
getic plain generally is, as regards forest growth, practically naked. 
2. The result of this unfortunate but easily understood distribution 
is apparent in the working of the forests. For the more valuable forest 
products, large and small timber, bamboos, tanning materials, lac, resin, 
and other valuable minor products, there is an incessant demand, but for 
the more bulky and less valuable products, such as fuel, fodder grasses, 
inferior timbers, small poles and the like, the more inaccessible forest 
areas are practically untouched. Thus, while in one part of the Pro¬ 
vince cattle may be dying wholesale for want of food, in many forest 
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