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OLD UNCUT SAL FORESTS IN CHOTA NAGPUR. A CHARACTERISTIC VIEW. A CONTRACTOR'S FAIR-WEATHER BRIDGE OF SLABS ACROSS A NULLA

puzzled railway engineers—namely, why, in a country with so vast an expanse of forest-covered land, they should yet have to send to England, or Australia, or Norway for their sleeperswill not be far to seek. Stand on any hill-top on the Pachmarhi or other high range, and look over the valleys below you. The dhya clearings can be easily distinguished from treejungle; and you will see that for one acre left of the latter, thousands have been levelled by the axe of the Gond or Korku. In fact, I can say, from an experience reaching over every teak tract in these hills, that, excepting a few preserved by private proprietors, no teak forest ever escaped this treatment, unless so situated in ravines or on precipitous hill-sides as to make it unprofitable to make dhya clearings on its site."

As a natural consequence of this method of cultivation, the people led a wandering nomadic life. They lived in small hamlets, of a few families only in each, scattered at such intervals as would give each settlement a sufficient range of jungle for dhya cutting. The huts were of the most temporary character made of materials from the forest. A few upright posts interlaced with bamboos, plastered with mud and thatched with the broad leaves of the teak with an upperlayer of grass or with grass only. To shift such a settlement entailed but a day or two of work, when the change of dhya sites made a move a necessity. As far as the men were concerned their idea of a pleasant existence was to accomplish the minimum amount of work possible in the shortest period of time, and thus spend the rest of their days in hunting and roaming about in the forests; and this outlook upon life persisted to a much later date, in fact exists in the wilder parts of the country to this date, as many a Forest Officer has discovered for himself.

The dhya cultivation practised throughout the hills of the Central Region was almost in itself sufficient to have proved the ruin of the forests, but other causes had also unfortunately supervened. The most valuable timbers for railway construction and other purposes at the time were the teak and the sâl. No other timbers were considered to be really lasting when subjected to the great and sudden variations of the Indian climate. In this matter the conservatism of the native was hide-bound to a degree: and the British assimilated these opinions without question. Throughout the great Indian Forests, comprising a number of fine useful timbers, many of which should have had a high marketable value, but a few

species were in common use, and against these a merciless war of extermination was waged, no efforts being made to ascertain the value of the rest or their capabilities of replacing for many purposes the few which custom through long ages had come to consider as the only commercial and utilisable timbers. These opinions were to remain in the ascendant for long years after the period here dealt with. Forsyth himself appears to have become, unconsciously perhaps, infected in some slight degree with the prevalent opinions. To some extent his remarks account for the extraordinary rapidity with which a great part of the Bombay, Madras and Tenasserim Forests were cut out during the first half of the century. On this subject Forsyth wrote:

"The teak tree is perhaps the most generally useful in the whole world. In combined strength, lightness, elasticity and endurance there is none to compare with it. At the present day its uses cover a wider range than those of any other timber, from the handle of an axe in its native forests to the backing of an ironclad in the Navy of England. But it is unfortunate also that it is the easiest of all timbers to fell, and makes better firewood and charcoal than any other. It is little wonder then that on it almost exclusively, when found, had fallen the weight of the peoples' requirements, ever since the country was populated by civilised tribes. I have already said that it is a most difficult tree to reproduce, the seeds being exposed to the extremities of danger before they have had the opportunity to germinate. The seedlings also, with their great dried leaves, like so many sheets of tinder, are more exposed to injury by fire than those of any other tree. Thus the teak had been everywhere mercilessly cut down, and had to struggle with the most adverse circumstances to maintain a footing at all. Over great tracts where it once grew it has been utterly exterminated, giving place to such worthless species as the Boswellia, which no one would dream of cutting, and on which Nature has bestowed all the indestructible vitality of a weed. The teak has but one rare and valuable property, by means of which it has alone continued to survive at all in many places. However much it may be cut and hacked, if the root only be left, it will continue to throw up a second growth of shoots, which grow in the course of a few years into the size of large poles. This is the sort of timber which was chiefly in demand for the small native houses before the introduction of our great public works;

and thus may perhaps be explained the apathy with which the Native Governments witnessed the destruction of the forests of larger timber.”

Contrasting the sâl with the teak, Forsyth commented upon the much greater vitality of the sâl as a species, and added that it was not so generally useful, particularly for minor purposes, "being hard to fell, of coarse grain and making an inferior charcoal." Owing to the valuable commercial "dammar" the tree produced, he stated that this fact alone had led to a very great destruction of the sâl forests; whilst thousands of square miles of forests of this species had been destroyed by the Bygar in dhya cultivation. At this period the sâl forests of this region were very inaccessible, Forsyth writing: "The sâl tracts are very inaccessible from the populous regions, the nearest point where any great supply could be had for the railway being about 100 miles, by a bad land route. This distance has up to the present time proved an unsurmountable obstacle to the general utilisation of the sâl timber on the railway works . . . the railways finding it cheaper to import pine sleepers from Norway, and ironwood from Australia than to carry the sâl timber growing within a hundred miles of their line."

The Annual Report of the Forest Department for 1863-4, submitted by Captain Pearson, gives evidence that a certain amount of progress had been made in the proposed conservancy measures. Rules for the management of the forests had been drafted and were under consideration by the Government; recognition had been obtained to the necessity of prohibiting dhya cultivation in valuable forest areas; and the subdivision of the forests into separate forest charges had been suggested by the Conservator. The full introduction of these measures only came into force after the close of the period under review

The financial results for the year 1863-4 were as follows: The actual receipts amounted to Rs.70,988 and the expenditure to Rs.67,707, showing a surplus of Rs.3281. The outstandings amounted to Rs.7000, and the balance of stock on the 30th April, 1864, was valued at Rs.78,766 against Rs.20,000 on 30th April, 1863.

Both the Governor-General and the Secretary of State commented very favourably on the good commencement made with forest conservancy in the Province, and "on the interest shown by Mr. Temple and the zeal and ability displayed by Captain Pearson, the Conservator."

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