(the number promised to the Dockyard) in a season, or a sufficiency of carriage to remove so very large an amount of building wood as would thus accumulate, so as to be able to cover the extra expense of sawing by the sale of it." "The planks required for Bombay are described as follows: 'It is of the greatest importance that these planks should be cut straight, fair edged, be sound and free of all defects of a serious nature, and be cut from the side pieces of the tree so as not to contain the heart-shake or centre of the tree. Now, as far as my experience has taught me, I am inclined to think that the heart-shake in the Malabar teak tree is far more extensive than that in the Burmese Forests, and this is to be accounted for by the former growing in hilly and exposed situations, whereas the latter, for the greater part, is found in low marshy soil. The consequence of this has been that all the trees I cut up this season, in the manner I had seen them cut up in Burma, turned out badly, and out of about 100 logs con' aining about 8000 cubic feet only about 100 inferior planks of the dimensions required for the Dockyard purposes were obtained, containing in all about 1,200 cubic feet; and though all the remaining wood is serviceable for building purposes (part of which will be used for the Neilgherry Barracks), I was obliged to relinquish the hope of cutting with the saw alone. I therefore, in the middle of the season, recommenced cutting with the axe, and though the waste of wood is great, there is no difficulty whatever in procuring the description of wood required, perfectly sound; for the Malabar axemen on felling a tree, and cutting it in various places, are enabled to follow the heart-shake in all its windings with the axe, and so avoid it, where in a sawn log it would inevitably appear in the planks. "The wastage of this system of cutting is, however, much to be lamented, but as the demand is urgent it will be necessary to continue it, to some degree, till the sawyers flock more numerously to the jungle, and the carriage for the side pieces, etc., is more easily obtainable. It will, however, be my endeavour to work as much as possible with the saw, eventually, I trust, to the entire exclusion of the axe." This allusion to the demands of the Dockyard being urgent had now run through the whole of the Government's requests for teak during a quarter of a century and more, and affords perhaps the best evidence of the total failure to realise that the absence of a forest policy and an organised working of the forests was bound to result in an annually increasing difficulty in obtaining supplies. Michael's staff cannot be considered excessive. He himself was paid Rs.150 a month (in addition it is imagined to his military pay); with a carpenter, Corporal Reid, on Rs.100; an overseer of sawyers, Mr. Harrington, on Rs.50; a writer on Rs.50; and thirteen duffadars (overseers) and peons, etc., the total monthly outlay being Rs.422, with, in addition, a receiver and four peons at Ponany on the coast. The felling cost worked out to 2 annas 2 pie per cubic foot, the carriage per plank of 12.4 cubic feet to the top of the slip at R.1.4.0, the slipping down the slipway at 3 annas per plank and Rs.4 per plank for the carriage from the foot of the slip to Mangara. The cost of floating per plank to Ponany was R.1. As was to be expected at the initiation of departmental work, Michael had to meet the strongest opposition and persecution from timber contractors and their agents. In order to show that Government work could not pay many of the planks were at first cut below the required size so as to render them useless for dockyard work-an experience which many later-day Forest Officers have encountered. In February, 1852, he lost 600 of his finest planks through an incendiary fire; in 1850 and 1851, 1394 and 1851 planks were cut respectively, totalling an estimated 59,600 cubic feet.1 The expenditure for the two seasons on establishment, elephants, axemen, huts, etc., was Rs.15,328, and that for carriage, slipping and floating of the planks, Rs.18,200, giving a total expenditure of Rs.33,528, or nearly 9 annas a cubic foot. This was based on the "forest measurement," whereby an allowance had been made in the planks for deficiencies, such as cracks, etc. The Government method of deducting for these was to press the blade of a knife into the crack, and according to the depth it penetrated that allowance of timber was deducted from the whole plank; so that, in the event of the deficit increasing, the plank might be trimmed to the thickness at which it was taken and registered. Michael's estimated 59,600 cubic feet was at least 20 per cent less than the actual measurements of the planks. In addition to the plank cutting the work carried out in 1 If the plank is taken as containing 12.4 cubic feet, the total contents of the three lots of planks, viz. 600, 1394 and 1851 equals 47,678 cubic feet.AUTHOR. 2 On the above calculation it would equal 11 annas per cubic foot. the forests included road work, the preparation of logs for the gun-carriage manufactory and felling log timber for the same purpose, 14,500 cubic feet of the latter having been cut. A bridge over the River Colengode, a work of great importance to the country at large which no private timber contractor would have ever undertaken, was also built. And in addition to the above Michael stated, "my leisure moments have been occupied in rendering such assistance as has been in my power to the Collector of Coimbatore, in collecting the Hill produce of the Anaimalais from the Kaders, and in endeavouring to amelioriate the condition of this heretofore oppressed raceby inducing them to cultivate the land, and to become partially civilised-which endeavours have now every prospect of being in due course of time crowned with success.' Many an Indian Forest Officer since Michael penned these lines has, in the course of his duties, carried on the same class of civilising work and held out the hand of fellowship to the wild and uncivilised races who roam the great jungles of Hindustan. After the delivery of the first batch of 1578 planks to the Bombay Government Agent it was possible to show at the end of December, 1852, that the result of the departmental working since its initiation in 1850 had been a great saving to Government. The deductions made for splits, cracks, etc., amounted to 23 per cent, so that Michael's estimate of 20 per cent was not far out. The saving effected by the Anaimalai working was on two heads. Owing to the expected arrival of the Anaimalai teak at Ponany Mr. Poulten, the Government Agent, reduced the prices of planks offered for sale by the merchants by about 15 per cent. Taking the average price paid by Government for this material for the five years, 1847 to 1851, it was demonstrable that the Government working had not only prevented the price from increasing in 1851 as would have been the case, owing to the greater distance, had the merchants worked the Anaimalai Forests themselves, but had actually resulted in a decrease of the market prices. The average price for the five years were as follows:- Ist Class Planks, 67 rupees per 100 kolls (26 cubic feet). = Fourteen hundred and one planks 17,378 cubic feet were classified into these four groups, the greater number into classes 2 and 3, and at the above average valuation were worth Rs.39,063. The bulk of this timber was not the best cut, since 600 of the finest planks had been burnt. The timber thus lost had been estimated to equal about 15,000 cubic feet,1 and taking it to have been half 1st and half 2nd class timber was worth Rs.33,947, giving a total value of Rs.73,000 for the material which would have been delivered to the Government Agent by the end of 1852, or Rs.28,765 in excess of the whole sum expended in the Anaimalai Forests, including roads, bridges, etc., since the start of the work. In addition there were at the time 2700 planks at the foot of the slip, and 22,500 cubic feet of loss, heads and bolts for the gun-carriage factory and rejected timber suitable for the Neilgherry Barracks work still in the forest or at the foot of the slip awaiting carriage. The former material went from the foot of the slip to Vangul, whilst the latter was sent to Metapollian from whence it was carried up the hill to Wellington, etc., for the construction of the barracks. Thus, in addition to the ten miles of cart road, driven through the forests from the top of the slip, over which 150 carts passed daily, Michael had three roads from the foot of the slip, all of which he had immensely improved and bridged over the river and nullahs, thus conferring an immense benefit on the countryside. Trouble still continued to be experienced from the sawyers, and to obviate it Michael commenced felling the teak green, instead of dead, as the men said that the shake was greatly intensified by the fall of the dead as against the green trees. Consequently the sawyers refused to touch the girdled trees owing to the loss they incurred from sawing up trees with the shake. The planks cut from the green trees sent down with the others were found to be much freer from shake and were accepted by the Government Agent, "as being of fine quality and particularly free from defects." These planks were allowed to lie in the forest for some time after being prepared so as to partially season. The season of 1853-4 began very auspiciously. Workmen and carters arrived in numbers. But within a brief space that dreaded scourge cholera broke out, and in a few days the whole of the men left and did not return for a month. But by the 1 Or 25 cubic feet apiece. |