but large timber-yielding trees. Then came the demand for sleepers, causing the exploitation of 56,691 trees. The sleeper fellings have to a great extent been confined to closed blocks, but they have also been extended to open forest near Bilraien and Badhi Tâl. The trees felled for sleeper cutting, though inferior and malformed and unfit to yield timber, were, as a rule, selected for their soundness, in order to obtain the largest possible out-turn; but, nevertheless, they averaged only about eleven sleepers per tree, and the forest is filled with worthless wood and branches, for which there is no present market.

As already said, the trees felled for sleepers could under no circumstances have yielded long timber or scantlings, and in so far no loss has been experienced by their exploitation; but the fellings for sleeper operations, following the selection fellings prescribed by the Working Plans, resulted in a considerable reduction of sound seed-bearers.

In the fire-protected compartments this is, in my opinion, of no injurious consequence, and from a purely forest point of view is rather beneficial than otherwise; for a sufficiency of seed-bearing trees have been left, in every locality I inspected, to ensure reproduction, and this will in such places be stimulated by the opening out of the forest. If fires are successfully kept out, the enormous quantity of dead wood now lying in the forest will, moreover, not be lost, if the demand for firewood expected to arise in consequence of the railway construction becomes a reality.

In all open or unprotected forests, subject to annual conflagrations, sleeper operations are an unmitigated evil, and largely magnify the injuries already effected by the much more lenient selectionfellings, and here the large quantities of dead wood must largely add to the destructiveness of forest fires. Till fire protection is therefore extended to them, all exploitation of these unprotected areas ought to cease. The rule that no seed-bearing trees should be felled on the very edges of blanks and phantas has here again not everywhere been sufficiently attended to.

The extraction of asan trees, which of late has assumed con siderable dimensions, is in consonance with the recommendations made in former Reports and Suggestions. At the time when the wholesale extraction of this tree was recommended, it had no particular value, and was naturally regarded as a component part of the forest, which it was well to get rid of in order to make place for sål reproduction. The conditions have since altered, and asan, though still much less valuable than sâl, is no longer value less, as it was a few years ago. I have, however, even now no objec tion to offer to the extraction of mature asan trees in fire protected blocks without much reference to the number of first-class trees available, as long as it is remunerative; but no fellings of this tree even should take place in unprotected compartments."

He then makes suggestions with regard to the proposed Working Plan which need not be gone into here. He says, however, that a forest situated like Kheri should, if protected throughout and brought into complete working order, yield probably four times the number of trees it had done on an average even during the years 1880-1 to 1885-6. The extent of the enumeration of the growing stock would depend on the system of management contemplated in the Working Plan, but he thought it would be possible to undertake the enumeration in one season. The demand of the railway had changed the position in this respect. Before the sleeper demand, for which sound shorter trees could be felled, the demand only existed for sâl timber of large dimensions, and probably no other system than that prescribed to date could have been undertaken, but they could not be called "true selection fellings," for the trees were only "selected" from a purely commercial point of view and not from a sylvicultural one. Moreover, a safeguard against deterioration of the soil is only ensured to a small extent by the method, even when the area is fire protected, for it is doubtful whether the removal of single trees here and there always opens the canopy sufficiently to permit of a complete reproduction. But, even with the sleeper demand, only a small proportion of the trees were fit to yield them, and again purely commercial selection was the rule and Brandis' stipulations with regard to seed-bearers and trees near the phantas had not been respected. Ribbentrop considered, however, that it would be difficult to supervise fellings carried out in this fashion and, " as long as the present conditions of the market remained unaltered, it will hardly be possible to change the system which has been forced upon us by circumstances, under which the working of the forest must be entirely on the amount of marketable growing stock throughout the forests and its rate of growth. The work cannot be sufficiently concentrated to assist reproduction by a more highly sylvicultural system of felling affecting the entire peuplement we must therefore remain dependent for reproduction mainly on fire protection.”

Ribbentrop believed in departmental working and wished to obtain natural regeneration if possible as a result of, and in conjunction with, the working of the forests in this manner. Starting from the basis that fire and grazing must be excluded, he considered that the point of importance was that a considerable opening in the canopy was necessary. To this end,

and in order at the same time to exclude the drying influence of hot winds and the sun, and so maintain the soil fresh and active and at the same time to keep down the heavy growth of grass, Ribbentrop says, "personally I would prefer to see the introduction of strip fellings." The italics are the writer's. Ribbentrop's proposals for the Working Plan were as follows:

"

Under these circumstances, I would feel inclined to divide the forest into twenty blocks, with a somewhat equal stock of trees. I would then fell, on parallel strips 150 to 200 feet broad, all firstclass trees and such of the second-class as are unsound and malformed beyond recovery, leaving alternate strips of the forest untouched. This will, if we again accept, for argument's sake, the figures obtained by the recent enumerations, give an out-turn of 2200 sound mature trees, 5300 unsound trees of the first class, and probably some 5000 unsound or crooked trees of the lower classes, and consequently lead to the removal of some six trees per acre. Their felling, conversion, and extraction will for the time being destroy the grass crop, and thereby ensure the germination of the seed, and the forest will be sufficiently opened on the strips operated upon to permit of the maintenance and development of the young growth. The belts of intervening untouched forest will contain a sufficient number of seed-bearers and ensure the maintenance of the freshness and consequent fertility of the soil. The annual outturn will increase year by year in as far as second-class trees grow into maturity on the belts which are to be worked at a later period. I propose a rotation of forty years, during which to cut once over the entire forest, in order to be on the safe side. It may be that facts collected during the next season will enable us to shorten this period, or, possibly, future experience will show that the rotation. may be shortened and that the areas to be worked can consequently be increased. As a fact, I have used figures in this proposal only to explain my design more clearly. If accepted, it rests with the Working Plan Officer to work out the details."

With reference to the other forest tracts and grass lands, Ribbentrop did not advocate any interference for the present, for they are not as yet sufficiently valuable and necessary to the State to be worth the unpopularity which would arise from an abrupt interference with an established custom, however objectionable it may be in the abstract, further than is absolutely necessary."

The Bhira Forest.-This forest is a projection from the Kumaun Terai. It was almost pure sâl, but of very inferior growth and character, even when compared with the worst parts of Kheri. More than half the area was occupied with large phantas covered with a low bushy scrub jungle of sâl, which died down each year, being killed by either frost or fire,

or both, in one season. The bases of the stems were gnarled, twisted and knotted, and it was from these that the shoots were sent out year after year to be destroyed. Ribbentrop doubted if coppicing would produce any good results from such excrescences. For the rest of the forest he prescribed fire protection and strip fellings, for he says that "strip fellings in the fire-protected area, which were made three years ago near the central forest-house, have yielded sufficiently favourable results to commend a similar treatment for all fire-protected This forest is outside the Terai, and was surrounded and intersected by the cultivation of many populous villages. The Puranpur Forest.-This forest is a continuation of the Bhira Forest towards the north-east. The soil was both deeper and better than in Bhira, but the tree growth even worse, and this was directly attributable to the gross abuses to which the forest had been subjected. Ever since 1850 the villages of the pargana had been permitted, under an order of the Commissioner of Rohilkhand, to make unrestricted use of the forest, grazing, firing and indiscriminate hacking, especially of sâl poles and saplings used for rafters and fences, such as described by Read (II, p. 356), being practised unchecked.

Under the recent Settlement the Maina Kot and Dhanaura blocks, about a third of the forest, had been entirely closed as Government property free of rights. But the rest, the "open forest," unless protected, was lost both to the State and the community.

The Pilibhit Forest.-This forest is divided from the Puranpur Forest by the Mala Swamp. The soil was similar to the latter, but the growth better, owing to the villagers having had to pay for all produce taken from it. About 7852 acres of this forest had been fire-traced for years, and in some of the fire-traced compartments strip-fellings were made in 1883-4 and the three subsequent years. The results of the operations, Ribbentrop says, were an unqualified success, the strips of 1883-4 being covered in 1886 with an almost complete thicket, varying in height from 6 to 16 feet. Since reproduction of this nature can be ensured the Inspector-General recommended that a Working Plan should be made, for its preparation would present no difficulties.

In 1890 Eardley Wilmot became Conservator of Forests in Oudh, and during the next nine years he undertook the reorganizing of the management of the forests. He had never been enamoured with the method of departmental working in

force, which he thus describes, alluding to his earlier work in the Circle: "Besides the protection of the forests there was its exploitation by means of departmental operations, a now antiquated system, which afforded to the subordinates unlimited opportunity for bribery and oppression, and occupied the whole time of the Forest Officer in detailed accounts which were impossible to check in the field. In those days the Forester was, beyond everything, a timber-merchant and a revenue collector, and this state of affairs naturally hindered sylvicultural progress, for no time was left for the higher professional duties of the staff." It is not surprising to find, therefore, that one of the first pieces of reorganization to which he devoted his attention as Conservator was a change in this method of working the forests. Eardley Wilmot admits that a change in a system of management in any industry does not necessarily imply adverse criticism of previous authority, and this is specially the case in forest administration when in its infancy. As the Conservator says:

"It is well to recall that the methods of the past were at one time new, and doubtless involved difficulties in their introduction" (as this history will have shown was the case), " and that they were probably the best available under former conditions; but there can be no progress without change, and the successful introduction of changes does but indicate that opportunity has been seized for making that progress. In the case in point, the Kheri Forests were being worked on the selection' method, a system for which they were not ready, and which resulted in an inadequate out-turn. The felling, the carting, the floating of the sâl logs to Bahràmghât, their sale or sawing to indent--all these operations were carried out by a multitude of petty contractors, and the accounts of these men remained open for many months, being complicated with frequent cash advances, while at the same time the control of large quantities of timber spread over many miles of a slow and risky waterway, and its disposal at a distant sawmill, was not under efficient supervision. In the forest, again, the system led to serious sylvicultural disadvantages; the best trees were, naturally, selected for felling, and the inferior stock was left on the ground, so that in theory as well as in practice, we were depleting the forest capital instead of building it up. It was not without some misgivings that the sawmill at Bahramghât was closed after investigations that, to put it mildly, exposed many serious irregularities; and the question then arose how to induce the extremely conservative members of the Indian timber trade to risk a new departure in a forest with which they were unacquainted. Fortunately my dealings with these men in past years had given them sufficient confidence to follow me in