Part VIII] Smythies : Afforestation of Ravine Lands 25 
and for quite small children, clod breaking on the bandhs 
and ridges. (The details of organisation and classification 
of gangs are given in the next chapter.) 
(ii) It is a form of work which (unlike other relief-works such as 
roads or buildings or tanks) can be started or stopped at 
any time, without rendering useless the work previously 
done. 
(iii) It will in time prove directly remunerative, besides affording 
a permanently improved fuel and fodder Supply to the 
neighbourhood. 
(iv) It is singularly well adapted to small civil works, scattered 
about in the vicinity of the famine stricken villages. In 
fact labour should be definitely limited to a maximum of 
800 to 1,000 on any one work, as larger numbers are difficult 
to control. It supplies work to the people near their 
villages. 
(v) The gangs of 30 to 50 work more or less separately, and the 
work is always moving on to new ground. This is a favour¬ 
able factor for sanitation and prevention of cholera or other 
infectious diseases. 
(vi) Reclamation work is peculiarly flexible and elastic, and a 
scheme of work prepared before the famine starts can be 
easily and quickly adapted or added to or altered, to meet 
altering conditions of labour supply. 
3. When the monsoon failure indicates clearly that famine opera¬ 
tion will be necessary, the Forest Officer in 
schemT ati0n ° f famiDe reUef consultation with the Collector, has to draw 
up the scheme of work to be followed, if 
such scheme is not already prepared. 
The Collector indicates roughly where relief works will be required 
and how much labour at each may be expected. The areas to be 
worked over are then fixed, and the boundaries clearly demarcated 
by a dag-bel on the ground. It will enormously facilitate subsequent 
checking and control if rectaugular 10 to 20 acre plots are dag-belled 
out, and numbered, two or three or five or more such plots being marked 
at each work as required. Simultaneously the bandhs required in 
these plots have to be selected, their sites pegged and dag-belled, their 
dimensions taken and tracings prepared, and their water escapes clearly 
defined. 
This work has to be completed before the opening of any test work 
which itself precedes the declaration of famine. 
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