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gradually stagnated whilst much professional work which would have enormously enhanced the value of the Forest Estate remained undone.

The total forest receipts in Ajmére-Merwara for the seven years 1872-3 to 1878-9 amounted to Rs.6,293, whilst the expenditure during the same period amounted to Rs.1,42,136. During a portion of this period the salary of a Superior Officer (Moir) was incurred. Brandis did not consider that he was in a position to advise that a home-trained officer should be placed in charge again. His estimate of the annual expenditure for the succeeding five years was Rs.1800 with a revenue of Rs.2000 only. Nor did he think that the occasional visits of a Punjab Officer, Moir or another, could prove sufficient to maintain the necessary control. He surmounted his difficulty by suggesting that the Conservator of the School Circle in the N.W.P. should be constituted the professional adviser in forest matters to the Commissioner of Ajmére, and that the former or an Officer of the School should visit the region periodically. That Brandis fully recognized the value and importance of the work is evidenced by the following remark made in advocating the above suggestion. "The task to be accomplished by forest conservancy in Ajmére possesses a peculiar interest, as it is the first instance in India in which Government has undertaken the formation of forests with the chief object of improving the agriculture of the district. But apart from this the work here proposed to be done is of an exceedingly varied character, and will be most instructive for the officers employed on it, and for the probationers and apprentices who will receive their training at the Forest School."

Brandis was rather too sanguine. Ajmére came to be looked upon as a white elephant. It is difficult to understand, moreover, how he could have really held the belief that the observations he suggested should be kept at his proposed stations on tanks, wells and streams could have any accepted scientific value when kept by uneducated men under the supervision of, to them, unknown officers paying flying visits and with no controlling authority over them.

Much was done in Ajmére by the end of the century, as the examples quoted by Ribbentrop of the Mendikola Stream in the Mohwa Bir Reserve (II, p. 557) and the effects of the protection of the Danta Reserve (II, p. 559) well illustrate.

But scientific results of inestimable value, both to India and

elsewhere in the world, might have been available had a welltrained Forest Officer with a scientific and mathematical bent of mind been maintained in charge of so interesting a departure.

In 1884-5 the area of Reserves amounted to 144 square miles. It was considered that a larger area of forests would be necessary to provide for the requirements of the country and 32 square miles of forest were to be made into Village Forests. In 1897-8 20 square miles, comprising the forests of Chang, Borwar, Kotra, Seliberi, Auspahar and Beliawas, were surveyed by a Surveyor of the Forest Survey branch and mapped on the scale of 4 inches to the mile. In the following year a set of simple rules for the conservation and management of Village Reserves was prepared by the Commissioner and was under the consideration of the Government of India. Progress was also made with the construction of roads. Ajmére suffered from the severe famine of the closing years of the century. The Chief Commissioner remarked: "The revised record-of-rights sanctioned by Government could not be brought into operation, as the season of acute famine and scant yield of grass rendered necessary the adoption of special grazing rules with a view to mitigate the distress among the villages." The wisdom of the afforestation work undertaken thirty years before became abundantly manifest. For the people were saved from the worst of the horrors of 1867-9.

CHAPTER VI

THE PROGRESS OF FOREST CONSERVANCY IN THE PUNJAB AND BALUCHISTAN, 1871-1900

I

N previous chapters devoted to a consideration of the introduction of forest conservancy in the Punjab refer

ence has been made to the fact that the first enquiries and investigations undertaken mainly referred to the deodar forests in the Himalayan region of the Province. Deodar was the principal timber used and unrestricted fellings had been made by contractors in the more accessible forests in the native states of Chamba and Bashahr. With the object of checking further devastation and instituting a control over these valuable areas it has been shown that leases were obtained by the Local Government from the Rajas of these States, annual payments being made to the latter (II, 255-6). The Punjab Government had also expressed the opinion that all forests similarly situated on the great rivers and their affluents should, if possible, be leased and placed under the Forest Department (II, 261).

A great demand for sleepers had arisen owing to the construction of the Punjab Railways, and the idea appears to have been entertained that the Bashahr Forests might be cut out to supply this demand. This suggestion was vetoed by the Secretary of State for India in his Despatch sanctioning the fifty-year lease of the Bashahr Forests (II, 257).

Allusion has also been made (II, 256) to a "Report on the Deodar Forests of Bashahr." This Report was drawn up in 1865 by Brandis, Stewart, Conservator of the Punjab, and Wood, Conservator in Oudh. It will be necessary to briefly detail some of the prescriptions for the management of the forests laid down then before dealing with the Preliminary Working Plan framed by Brandis and other officers in 1875.

The deodar forests visited by Brandis, Stewart and Wood in 1864 were (1) those between Poinda and Sapni on the left or south bank of the Sutlej River, termed the Lower Sutlej Forests;

(2) the forests on both sides of the Buspa River, a tributary of the Sutlej, and (3) the upper forests on the Sutlej. These forests were classified into non-available and available forests. The former were those from which the timber could not be extracted by the methods employed up to that time, i.e. rolling the logs down ravines or steep slopes, or making rough dry slides and sliding them down (I, p. 411). The nonavailable forests were not therefore considered in the Report in question and would only become available "either by converting the timber on the spot into scantling, which can be carried to the river, or by forming artificial slides and improving the tributaries so as to fit them for floating timber." It was stated at the time that "these forests are very extensive, and having only been worked to meet local requirements, they are rich in valuable timber." The available forests were those from which, under the existing methods, timber could be extracted and were the only ones examined at this period; but even in these, many of the forests would only become available after blasting works had been undertaken to render the rivers floatable.

The deodar-producing tracts in Bashahr were divided into five geographical groups containing the following number of trees:

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These figures were obtained as follows: (a) forests surveyed, area 3500 acres, first-class trees, 33,400; (b) forests not surveyed, area not estimated, first-class trees, 24,600. It was

supposed that the area not available contained at least a similar number of first-class trees, thus giving a total estimate of 116,000 first-class trees.

The deodar forests fit to be worked rarely attained an elevation of 10,000 feet. There was considerable variation in size of the trees in the lower and upper portion of the forests. The most valuable deodar localities were found on the terraces of old cultivation, of which the Nachar Forest formed the best example. The largest trees here had attained a height of 250 feet and a girth of 20 feet, the trees being more than 550 years old, the majority being from 150-350 years. The largest trees measured in the region were five giants round an old temple near the village of Kunai between Kilba and Sapin, four of which had a girth of 25 feet 4 inches, 24 feet 9 inches, 23 feet 2 inches and 17 feet 4 inches, whilst on a terrace above the village of Burbani an old tree, probably about 900 years old, measured 34 feet 4 inches in girth.* The largest trees recorded in the region were 39 feet 8 inches, Taranda (Madden), 36 feet, Chasoo (Madden), and 35 feet 6 inches, Soongree (Thompson, Hoffmeister and Cleghorn). The average height of first-class trees below the mouth of the Buspa Valley varied from 100 to 150 feet; further up they rarely exceeded 100 feet, the average being 70 to 80 feet. In the Nachar Forest the average yield of trees felled in 1864 was six logs of 12 to 14 feet in length and measuring 35 cubic feet apiece. In the Upper Buspa Forests the trees yielded only two to three logs apiece on an average. In the Nachar Forests one hundred standing trees and forty-four stumps of felled trees were measured on 2.30 acres, the result being an average of 218 cubic feet per first-class tree and 66 cubic feet per second-class tree.

Carefully compiled and most interesting tables are given in this Report, based on series of measurements of sample plots and linear surveys in various forests and the countings of the rings on numerous stumps. This careful work gave the first statistics on the rate of growth of the deodar and these were accepted by the framers of the 1875 Working Plan.

On the subject of the methods he constantly employed and recommended for ascertaining the growing stock of forests, Brandis, in this Report, is careful to give his reasons for adopting them. He writes: "I may here mention that the

In the Museums at the Research Institute at Dehra Dun there is a section of a deodar tree which had already grown to the size of a fine pole at the time William the Conqueror landed at Hastings.

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