was estimated by the settlement officers at the time that this enormous waste area of about 20,000 square miles was useless for tillage, the remaining 13,000 being probably more or less capable of improvement. It has since been found that a larger area than the above was capable of being cultivated.

The greater part of this land had been subject to the land tax. During the times of anarchy which preceded the British rule, the assessment had been, in practice, only levied by force by whichever band of robbers happened to be in the ascendant in a locality at the time. The rights of property had therefore fallen greatly into abeyance, no one wishing to claim the land and thus be subject to spoliation. Our rule soon changed this aspect of affairs; land property acquired a value again, and numerous claimants appeared on all sides. This land settlement was far from completion, however, at the end of the period here dealt with.

The inhabitants of the hilly forest tracts consisted of aborigines known as Gonds, Kols, Korkus, Bygas and Bheels.

Allusion has already been made to the fact that at the time the Central Provinces were constituted little was accurately known regarding the forest resources of these vast waste regions. It had, indeed, been hinted that there was a possibility that the projectors of the railways had over-calculated the possible supply; but it was not appreciated that the exhaustion of the forests had gone so far as really proved to be the case. The devastation was mainly attributable, as in other parts of India and Burma, to the pernicious system of cultivation practised by the hill tribes, and, in fact, by all the unreclaimed aboriginal races throughout India. The system was that form of shifting cultivation termed kumere in Madras, toungya in Burma and here "dhya" and dhya” and “jhuming” in Bengal. The forests of this Central Region had for centuries been devastated by the cutting and burning of the best timber to form ashes to manure their wretched fields of half wild grain, the chief grains used being Kodon (Paspalum), Kutki (Panicum) and coarse rice, though other plains crops of the autumn season, usually from degenerate seed, were also sown.

Forsyth, in his sporting classic, The Highlands of Central India, describes the method in force in Central India in the following interesting paragraph:

"Though large tracts of splendid level land lie untilled on the Puchmari Plateau, and in the valleys below, the Korku has no cattle or ploughs with which to break it up. He has

nothing in the way of implements but his axe. This is enough, however, for his wants. He selects a hill-side where there is a little soil, and a plentiful growth of grass, timber and bamboos. He prefers a place where young straight teak poles grow thick and strong, as they are easiest to cut, and produce most ashes when burnt. He cuts every stick that stands on the selected plot, except the largest trunks, which he lops of their branches and girdles so that they may shortly die. This he does in the dry season (January to March), and leaves the timber thickly piled on the ground to dry in the torrid sun of the hot season. By the end of May it will be just like tinder, and he then sets fire to it and burns it as nearly as he can to ashes. With all his labour, however (and he works hard at this spasmodic sort of toil), he will not be able to work all the logs into position to get burnt; and at the end of a week he will rest from his labour, and contemplate with satisfaction the three or four acres of valuable teak forest he has reduced to a heap of ashes, strewn with the charred remains of the larger timber and trunks. He now rakes his ashes evenly over the field and waits for rain, which in due season generally comes. He then takes a few handfuls of one of the coarse grains he subsists on and flings them into the ashes, broad cast if the ground be tolerably level, if steep, then in a line at the top, so as to be washed down by the rain. Such is the fertilising power of the ashes that the crop is generally a very productive one, though the individual grains are far smaller than the same species as cultivated in the plains. A fence against wild animals is made round the clearing by cutting trees so as to fall over and interlace with each other, the whole being strongly bound with split bamboos and thorny bushes. The second year the dead trees and halfburnt branches are again ignited, and fresh wood is cut and brought from the adjoining jungle, and the same process is repeated. The third year the clearing is usually abandoned."

These clearings, in all the parts of the country where this system of cultivation was in force, were the favourite resort for all the wild animals of the neighbourhood, the larger being shot and the smaller, peafowl, partridges, hares, etc., being trapped in various forms of "dead fall" traps set in runs left open for the purpose. Sometimes the owner of the clearing sat up on a "machan," or platform, in the middle of the field, and endeavoured to frighten off the wild animals, but more usually he did not think it worth the trouble and

left the crop to take its chance till ripe for cutting. At the period few of the villages of the aborigines were, however, without their professional hunter or shikari, who was usually a good shot with his long, heavy matchlock, and his patience was unwearying in sitting up watching for game. He took it in turn to sit up at night in the dhya clearings of the village, getting as remuneration all that he killed-and he spared nothing, neither sex nor young animals—and a basket of grain at harvest time besides. The skins of the sambhar deer have always had a considerable value in the market for preparing the well-known soft yellow leather which makes the best of sporting boots and gaiters, etc.

This system of cultivation, if it can be called by that name, was of the most precarious nature. The holding off of rain for a few weeks after the seed was sown, or when the ear was forming, meant the ruin of the crop, and then the owner was usually compelled to subsist entirely on what always largely supplemented his diet-the wild fruits and nourishing roots, with which fortunately for him the Indian Forests are well furnished. The rare seeding of the bamboo was a godsend to these people.

Forsyth's description of what followed in the train of the dhya clearing is of considerable interest, since the history of the forests of this region is so intimately connected with the nomadic life and methods of existence of the aboriginal tribes who had for so long inhabited the area.

"The abandoned dhya clearings are speedily covered again with jungle. The second growth is, however, very different from the virgin forest destroyed by the first clearing; being composed of low and very densely-growing bamboo, and of certain thorny bushes, which together form in a year or two a cover almost impenetrable to man or beast. I have often been obliged to turn back from such a jungle after vainly endeavouring to force through it a powerful elephant accustomed to work his way through difficult cover. In such a thicket no timber tree can ever force its way into daylight; and a second growth of timber on such land can never be expected if left to Nature. The scrub itself does not furnish fuel enough for a sufficient coating of ashes to please the dhya cutter; and so the latter never again returns to an old clearing while untouched forest land is to be had. Now if it be considered that for untold ages the aboriginal inhabitants have been devastating the forests, the cause of the problem that has