THE DARJILING HIMALAYAN RAILWAY SIDING RUNNING OUT
TO THE
PASSING THROUGH THE 1920 SAL.
SEEN

COUPE.

BENGAL

CREW OF TIBETANS OF LOGGING ENGINE (ALL PORTERS FROM THE EVEREST EXPEDITIONS).

TOONG

SAW

MILL,

ELEVATION

HIMALAYA

7,000 FT.

DARJILING

A. W. Houlding, photo.

VIEW

carries it down the hill-side from an elevation of 7000 feet to 6000 feet, a distance of 3500 feet, to a stacking yard by the Darjeeling cart road and a siding on the Darjeeling Railway. This ropeway, which is gravity operated, has an endless cable 7000 feet long running round 7-foot diameter sheaves at the upper and lower stations and supported along its length by timber trestles varying in height from 10 feet to 30 feet, the greatest span is 650 feet; sixteen carriers of the fixed-clip type are spaced uniformly along the ropeway, so that eight descending loads of 160 lbs. each-are always on the line whilst eight empty carriers are ascending the line. Up to 1 tons of planking can be transported."

In view of the fact that these hill forests have been under a Working Plan for many years, and that many areas have for so long been regarded as unexploitable owing to their inaccessibility, it will be readily conceded that the above operations demonstrate that modern ideas and methods are being brought to bear on extraction problems in the Bengal Forests.

In the Sundarbans Division the auction-coupe system replaced the old permit system in 1904. Extensive thinnings in sundri (Heritiera minor) pole forest were introduced about 1906 and later incorporated into Trafford's Working Plan. Farrington commenced linear enumeration surveys in 1907 which were utilized in the plan. Sample plots have also been laid out. The chief progress in reorganizing and placing exploitation on a sound basis was the result of Farrington's work whilst in charge between 1903-8. The old Chittagong Division was split into two in 1909, the Hill Tracts being separated, but not before the Maini Reserve had been almost ruined by extensive jhuming. In 1920 the Cox's Bazar Division was separated. Prior to 1918 no proper markinghammer system existed in the Hill Tracts. The demarcation and survey of the boundaries commenced in 1913 and was fairly complete by 1925. A policy of taking up head waters of reserves in the hills and all land unsuitable for wet cultivation in the plains is being followed. Low-lying areas are being given up by the Department in exchange. The old type of staff (revenue station officers) is being eliminated and a proper forest staff is being gradually appointed.

ASSAM

In Assam the trees are usually sold standing in the forest and worked out by elephants, buffaloes, carts or by flotation: Goalpara has, from the earliest days of forest conservancy, always been the show Division in Assam. Brandis, Schlich, Ribbentrop, Hill and Eardley Wilmot, and later InspectorsGeneral down to the present one, Clutterbuck, all visited these forests. As has been previously shown the trouble connected with the working of the forests, apart from malaria, is the absence of water. It was Perree, when appointed to the charge of Goalpara in 1904, who first practically solved the water difficulty by building a length of 2-foot tramline on which trolleys were operated by man power. This line has since been developed.

Before 1922 the coupes in Goalpara were sold by auction and were purchased by Mech, Bengali and Nepali contractors, the former extracting by water, the two latter by carts. The average price per tree was about Rs.9 in the Guma Reserve, Rs.14 in the Eastern Range. Very little green sâl was sold from the Central and Western Ranges. The contractors disposed of the material to middlemen in the log or pole form. The Government royalty was low and the middlemen made most of the profit. The contractors had little initiative and numbers of logs accumulated at the depots, as also outstandings of revenue. Bengal sâl was better known than that from Assam and had the easier outlet by the Eastern Bengal Railway. Of the four Ranges the growing stock in Guma was young and consequently of small size. Extraction was easy with a lead of 6-13 miles to the railway, with good roads and rides at the mile interval north-south and east-west. Thinnings are mainly prescribed for the Reserve. Extraction from the Eastern Range was more difficult, the lead being from 7 to 35 miles, the north-south and east-west roads and rides laid down in Perree's Working Plan having been neglected and being intersected by a number of streams running northsouth which required bridging. Extraction by river was fair, but large trees could not be extracted by this means. The tramway extension sanctioned in December, 1922, and bridge building undertaken during the last three years or so (to 1925) brought about a great change, as the former opened out large tracts of forest for which a market had to be found by the Department, and the first idea was to sell sawn material. In