IRLF 
 
gric,- Forestry. Main Library 
 
NOTES ON FORESTRY. 
 
I 
 
 PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
NOTES 
 
 ON 
 
 FORESTRY 
 
 BY 
 
 C. F. AMERY, 
 i 
 
 DEPUTY-CONSERVATOR, N.W. PROVINCES, INDIA. 
 
 " Die Grundsatze der Forstwirthschaft sind aller Orten die namlichen, 
 nur verschieden nach dem Material und den Yerhaltnissen, auf welche sie 
 angewandt werden. Vieles lasst sich in einem Naturwald erst anstreben ; 
 das Endziel der Forstwirthschaft zu erreichen, kann Generationen 
 kosten, bleibt aber stets ein Werk der Humanitat und Civilisation wie 
 des wirthschaftlichen Nutzens." 
 
 BURCKHARDT. 
 
 LONDON: 
 TRUBNER & CO., LUDGATE HILL. 
 
 1875. 
 [All rights reserved.] 
 

CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION, 
 
 SOWING, 
 
 PLANTING, 
 
 THINNING, 
 
 FELLING, . 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 TIMBER TRANSPORT, 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MEASUREMENT OF TIMBER, 
 
 11 
 
 . 22 
 
 , 34 
 
 . 41 
 
 43 
 
 . 55 
 
Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGK 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 TAKING STOCK, ..... 67 
 
 CHAPTER IX. ' 
 
 PERIOD OP FELLING, . . . . .73 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 . 78 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 FORESTS OF TREES OF VARIOUS AGES (MITTELWALD), . 83 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 FELLING BY SELECTION (PLANTERBETRIEB), . . 86 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 FELLING BY ROTATION OF AREA, . . . .90 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 TIMBER FOREST WITH COPPICE, . . . .94 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 TRANSITION FROM LOWER TO HIGHER FOREST CONDI- 
 TIONS, ...... 96 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 WORKING-PLANS, . . . . . .111 
 
NOTES ON FORESTRY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THE primeval forests, once occupying we know 
 not now how much of the vast peninsula of India, 
 have, in the ordinary course of cause and sequence, 
 gone down before the spread of a civilisation sup- 
 posed to have extended over nearly four thousand 
 years, to make room for an industrious and increas- 
 ing population. 
 
 This has ever been the fate of forests in all 
 civilised countries ; but in the harder North there 
 has always been a stage in which civilised com- 
 munities, animated by the need of warmth and 
 shelter, have interposed checks to further inroads 
 on forest area. Local climatic conditions have 
 rendered these influences to a great extent dormant 
 in India. There was little need for fuel in a 
 country in which the sun gave more than warmth 
 
2 NO TES ON FORES TR Y. 
 
 enough throughout the year ; little need for tim- 
 ber where the rudest huts supplied the necessary 
 shelter. The habits of the people were simple, 
 their wants few ; and such forests as escaped the 
 clearing axe of the Hindu appear to have owed 
 their preservation rather to their non-suitability to 
 agricultural purposes, or to the fact that there 
 was an ample area of already cleared land, than 
 to any purposed check based on the recognition of 
 the fact that a greater or less proportion of forest 
 area was necessary to the general well-being of 
 the people. It is probable that, for long periods 
 in the history of India, the increase of population 
 was scarcely appreciable : areas redeemed from 
 the forest in times of peace had been allowed 
 to run waste in time of war, and the alternate 
 resumption and abandonment of such tracts so 
 far occupied the energies of the people as to re- 
 move all temptation to trench further on forest 
 area. The Hindu appears never to have reached 
 that stage in which the threatened extinction of 
 the forests is recognised as an impending cala- 
 mity. 
 
 The invasion of Mohammedan conquerors appears 
 to have been followed by the purposed conservation 
 of such remaining forest tracts as were readily 
 accessible. Uninfluenced by the tenderness for 
 animal life which characterised the Hindu rulers, 
 
INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 but. often, on the contrary, keen sportsmen, they 
 constituted the forests game reserves, and severe 
 penal rules were sometimes promulgated against 
 even the removal of a stick. 
 
 But throughout the whole period of their 
 domination in India, it does not appear that 
 there was ever such a demand for land for agri- 
 cultural purposes as to render further forest 
 clearance necessary. On the contrary, there is 
 evidence of such an anxiety on the part of the 
 great talookdars and zemindars to secure settlers 
 on their lands, as justifies the assumption that 
 the cultivable area was in excess of the available 
 labour. 
 
 But with the advent of the British power in 
 India came a new era in the history of Indian 
 forests. The spread of a higher material civilisa- 
 tion, the dominance of a power mighty enough 
 to restrain internal war, and animated by a 
 disposition to foster every industry, gradually 
 introduced such a feeling of security among the 
 people at large as encouraged them to the display 
 of more domestic comfort and luxury than they 
 had dared indulge in under the rapacious eyes 
 of former rulers, and heavy drains were now 
 made on the existing stock of the remaining 
 forests. Peace and growing prosperity, aided, 
 perhaps, largely by the check given to the ancient 
 
4 NOTES ON FORESTRY. 
 
 practice of female infanticide, tended to a rapid 
 increase of population ; and side by side with the 
 inroads now being made on the forests for their 
 products, came a demand for the land for cultiva- 
 tion. English rulers, bred in the traditions of a 
 country in which coal and iron were the chief 
 factors of material progress, instead of regarding 
 with dismay the threatened extinction of the 
 forests in the face of a growing demand for 
 timber, hailed the spread of cultivation with 
 unmingled feelings of self-congratulation, and 
 vied with each other in "converting the forest 
 into smiling cornfields." 
 
 This destruction of forest area, keeping pace 
 with a rapidly-growing demand for timber, soon 
 directed attention to the mountain ranges of 
 the country, in which the unsuitableness of the 
 soil for cultivation had hitherto secured its 
 maintenance as forest. The outer and more 
 accessible ranges came first under tribute ; large 
 areas were laid bare by contractors, who had no 
 thought of providing for reproduction ; and the 
 soil which had accumulated under ages of forest 
 shade went down the steep hillsides before the 
 monsoon rains, leaving only the bare rock, from 
 the crevices of which had sprung up a sparse 
 and stunted vegetation, in place of the whilom 
 noble forest. Farther and deeper into the ranges 
 
INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 went the woodcutters, felling every valuable tree 
 before them, unmindful of the formidable obstacles 
 to transport, which prevented more than a small 
 proportion of the felled timber coming to market. 
 
 Deciduous mixed forests, too, were drained of 
 all their best varieties of timber, and the forest 
 acquired a new feature, by the predominance of 
 inferior kinds and worthless crooked timber. 
 
 The urgent necessity of doing something to 
 avert the total extinction of the forests, or, at 
 least, what was almost equivalent to it, the de- 
 struction of their value by mismanagement and 
 neglect, became at length recognised with more or 
 less force, and some twenty years ago a Forest 
 Department was formed for the better adminis- 
 tration of the remaining forests. 
 
 The difficulties which the new Department had 
 to encounter were almost incalculable. England, 
 with its vast wealth of iron and coal, was in a 
 measure independent of forest products, and, if 
 we except Evelyn's " Sylva," had no forest litera- 
 ture of any value as applied to this country. 
 Ruined forests were to be treated systematically 
 by men who, whatever their general abilities and 
 many of them, at least the provincial chiefs, were 
 men of no mean ability as botanists were never- 
 theless not only unacquainted with the first prin- 
 ciples of the science of forestry, but, for the most 
 
6 NOTES ON FORESTRY. 
 
 part, did not know where to turn for instruction. 
 Much of the mischievous tendency of past opera- 
 tions they were able to repress or restrain ; but 
 the Forest Department was naturally regarded as 
 a revenue department, and, in the effort to achieve 
 satisfactory financial results, the prevailing causes 
 of mischief were often perpetuated, although within 
 narrower limits. 
 
 Fortunately there soon came to the front a 
 man who grafted on the experience gained in 
 this country a knowledge of scientific forestry 
 as understood in Europe, and who, from his 
 position as Inspector-General of Forests, has been 
 enabled to permeate the Department with correct 
 views of the ends and aims of forest administration. 
 (I refer, of course, to Dr Brandis.) He has, more- 
 over, provided for filling up the ranks with 
 specially-trained men, whose experience, gained 
 in the executive grades, and grafted on those 
 broad principles acquired in the schools of France 
 and Germany, will in time fit them for dealing 
 with those weighty problems in the administra- 
 tion of Indian forests which for the present sorely 
 vex us. 
 
 To these men, trained in the schools of France 
 and Germany, the forest literature of those 
 countries is accessible ; but, in the advanced state 
 of the science in those countries, the literature 
 
INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 deals" so largely in details, that the student must 
 needs wade through a great mass of it to arrive 
 at a clear view of the broad general principles on 
 which the forest administration of those countries 
 is based. Moreover, for the great mass of Indian 
 forest officers, it would be impossible, or at least 
 a work of difficulty, to spell through technicali- 
 ties in a foreign language ; and, moved by these 
 considerations, I have been tempted to pen the 
 following pages, in which I have endeavoured to 
 adapt my Indian experiences to the principles 
 taught in Germany, for my general knowledge 
 of which I am mainly indebted to Forest Director 
 Burckhardt, who, to a comprehensive view of forest 
 administration, and an intimate acquaintance with 
 every detail of executive work, adds a singular 
 facility in imparting information, and a genial 
 nature, which rarely fails to affect those who have 
 the good fortune to come into contact with him 
 with his own enthusiastic love for the " forest 
 shades." I have further endeavoured to lay 
 before the reader the general features of such of 
 the German methods of forest management as 
 promise to be of useful application to our Indian 
 forests; but I have treated only of their general 
 features, being impressed with the idea that a 
 clear comprehension of these is of more im- 
 portance in the present state of the science 
 
NOTES ON FORESTRY. 
 
 of forestry in this country, than a mass of 
 technical details, not always applicable to the 
 diversified conditions of Indian forests. Broad 
 principles are of world-wide application, but in 
 matters of detail we must base our own system 
 upon our experience of local conditions. 
 
 There is yet another object which I have had 
 in view in penning these pages. The Forest 
 Department has been subjected to severe outside 
 criticism. In one place, financial results appear 
 utterly inadequate to the area under the control 
 of the Department ; in another, financial results 
 may be satisfactory, but the work not being in 
 part of a definite plan based on known data, there 
 is a suspicion that the future well-being of the 
 forests is being sacrificed for present returns. 
 These criticisms are of the greatest advantage 
 in keeping persistently before every forest officer 
 a knowledge of what is required of him, and the 
 necessity of a precise acquaintance with the 
 capabilities of his charge ; but while, on the one 
 hand, these criticisms are in many instances 
 essentially just, it may, on the other hand, be 
 fairly urged that sufficient allowance is not 
 always made for the ruined state in which some 
 of our forests came into the hands of the Depart- 
 ment, and the consequent impossibility of secur- 
 ing satisfactory financial results, with due regard 
 
INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 to the permanent maintenance of their capa- 
 bilities. 
 
 Some gross mistakes have unquestionably been 
 made in the past such as felling large quantities 
 of timber which were sold at an absolute loss upon 
 costs ; but such mistakes could only have been 
 made in ignorance of the relation of costs to 
 market value, and not in pursuit of any recognised 
 principle that it was necessary to do something, if 
 even at the cost of impoverishing the forests. But 
 it is even yet to be feared that, in some instances, 
 where seemingly satisfactory financial results are 
 achieved, there is not that attention to reproduction 
 which alone can justify the expectation of the per- 
 manent maintenance of the yield. 
 
 The golden rule for the forester is to maintain 
 his forest at its highest capacity of production ; 
 to cut out annually an amount equal to the annual 
 increment; to reduce transit charges to a figure 
 which shall secure him a market for his whole 
 produce ; and where natural difficulties render it 
 impossible to take timber to market at a profit, 
 to sell such portion of his annual increment as he 
 can locally, reserving the forest for a future day ; 
 or, if it is in the Hills, for its importance in the 
 general economy of nature, apart from direct finan- 
 cial considerations. 
 
 These ends can only be achieved by systematic 
 
I O NO TES ON FORES TR Y. 
 
 management ; and the author hopes that the 
 following pages will be of assistance in indicating 
 the means to the desired end. This little work 
 makes no pretension to a complete scientific ex- 
 position of the subject ; but the writer, strongly 
 impressed with the difficulty of first steps, has laid 
 before himself the modest attempt to smooth away 
 preliminary difficulties for such as need it. The 
 object sought to be attained is mainly the lay- 
 ing down of general principles, in such clear lan- 
 guage that one who had never before given the 
 subject a thought might rise from its perusal 
 with a good general idea of what to do and how 
 to do it. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 SOWING. 
 
 IN primeval forests which have escaped the 
 influence of the woodman's axe and such are 
 still to be found in the remote recesses of the 
 mountain ranges of India we find trees of all 
 ages, from the seedling of a few years' old to the 
 hoary giant that has braved the storms of centuries. 
 As a general rule, these purely natural forests do 
 not consist of trees of all ages growing pro- 
 miscuously together, but are divided naturally 
 into blocks, in each one of which the trees are 
 of a nearly uniform age. Among the younger 
 groups are sometimes to be found scattered giants 
 of an older growth : these are the trees of a past 
 generation, which have outlived their fellows, and 
 lead to the inference, established by a variety of 
 considerations, that the young forest beneath them 
 is the offspring of an older forest, of which they 
 are the survivors, and doubtless of many past 
 generations of forests. If we now turn our eyes 
 
12 NOTES ON POPES TR Y. 
 
 to another hillside, only dotted with large trees, 
 and the interspaces at foot covered with a dense 
 undergrowth, or deprived of its rich carpet of 
 humus, and supporting only grass, we should not 
 infer, in the case of gregarious trees, that the 
 existing sprinkling came up under present condi- 
 tions, but that they are the survivors of a once 
 close forest, the mass of which went down under 
 conditions unfavourable to reproduction. Careful 
 research has established the view that perfect and 
 thorough reproduction is largely dependent upon 
 a gradual removal of the existing older stock. 
 In the rich forest soil of the Plains, if a forest 
 tract be cleared, there will ordinarily spring up 
 a mass of coarse herbage and undergrowth, through 
 which coppice shoots may readily find their way, 
 but through which young seedlings will rarely be 
 able to struggle ; and on steep hillsides the chances 
 of reproduction following a clean sweep are still 
 more precarious. Under the forest shade the soil 
 is in a state of perpetual increment from humus 
 afforded by decaying foliage and trunks ; the roots 
 hold it together ; the branches break the violence 
 of the rainfall ; the spongy absorbent nature of 
 the soil enables it to retain it ; and this, slowly 
 sinking into the underlying rock, preserves the 
 needful moisture in the soil, and becomes the 
 source of perennial springs. But if such a nioun- 
 
SOWING. 13 
 
 tain forest be suddenly laid low, we have not only 
 to fear the sudden appearance of an undergrowth 
 prejudicial to tree reproduction, but we have to 
 fear the total loss of the soil, which, exposed to 
 the violence of the falling rain, and no longer held 
 together by the tree-roots, gets washed down into 
 the valley below, until the bared subsoil or rock is 
 unfitted for the support of any but the scantiest 
 herbage. 
 
 Turning now to the compact forests in search 
 of Nature's method of reproduction, and going from 
 blocks of poles of twenty feet high, through every 
 succeeding stage, to blocks of mature trees, we 
 find the number of trees on a given area dimin- 
 ished at every stage to make room for the gradual 
 perfect development of the survivors ; and as long 
 as the forest is full, although we may find delicate 
 seedlings of the year, we shall find none of two 
 or more years old : the trees, closing at top, do not 
 admit sufficient light to foster such seedlings as 
 annually germinate. But passing on to a block in 
 the next stage, in which mature trees are going to 
 decay, we find an occasional fallen tree, the site 
 occupied by which is covered with a dense carpet 
 of seedlings. Year after year fresh trees crumble 
 to decay, admitting sufficient light to foster the 
 seedlings which spring up annually, at first in 
 spots, and finally throughout the whole area, but 
 
1 4 NO TES ON FORES TR Y. 
 
 short of that full light which fosters the appear- 
 ance of dense undergrowth ; and by the time the 
 bulk of one generation has disappeared, a succeed- 
 ing generation is sufficiently strong to hold 
 together and shelter the soil on hillsides, and to 
 triumph over the undergrowth of shrubs in any 
 'condition. Nature's method is simply the gradual 
 admission of sufficient light to foster the young 
 seedlings, and short of that full light which 
 would leave them to struggle with rank under- 
 growth before they have attained to the necessary 
 strength for a successful struggle. 
 
 This method I found largely imitated in Ger- 
 many ; but the German forester, instead of wait- 
 ing for his trees to decay, attacks them at ma- 
 turity, thinning out the block at first only 
 lightly to foster germination, then to admit more 
 light to encourage healthy development, reserving 
 the clean sweep until such time as the forest is 
 covered with a new and vigorous growth. The 
 period between the first thinning and final clearing 
 varies from ten to thirty years. On the plains of 
 India, such is the rapid growth of some of our 
 trees in their earlier stages, as compared with 
 the rate of growth in Europe, that it will probably 
 not be desirable to extend the period beyond two 
 or three years ; but this difference of conditions 
 does not affect the principle, which is the admis- 
 
SO WING. I 5 
 
 sion of as much light, and no more, than is 
 necessary to the well-being of the young crop at 
 every stage. 
 
 In South Germany, where the period is frequently 
 protracted to thirty years, it is based less on the 
 necessities of the young crop than on the ascer- 
 tained fact that, in a forest in which the trees have 
 already been drawn up to their full height, a sharp 
 thinning out, to an extent that allows every tree 
 to stand alone, results in the production of as 
 large an increment as would be made by a close 
 forest of the same area, and of a larger class of 
 timber than could be grown in close forests a fact 
 of the utmost importance in the treatment of our 
 plantations of naturally non-gregarious trees, such 
 as sissoo, to which further reference will be made 
 in the chapter on thinning. 
 
 This is the simplest and most economical of all 
 systems of reproduction, and is especially applicable 
 to forests of deciduous trees. 
 
 This method is sometimes supplemented by 
 hoeing the ground to a depth of a few inches in 
 small spots a few feet apart, a method facilitating 
 the lodgment of the seed, and insuring its taking 
 root, especially in hard or stiff soils. 
 
 If it is desired to substitute another class of tree 
 for that now growing in the forest, the seed of the 
 required class should be scattered over the forest 
 
1 6 NOTES ON FORESTRY. 
 
 at the proper germinating season following tlie first 
 light thinning. 
 
 If the newly-introduced seedlings are as hardy 
 and of as rapid growth as those they have to con- 
 tend with, they may be left to take care of them- 
 selves ; but if they are less hardy, or of slower 
 growth in their first stages, we must help them 
 in the struggle by keeping down their opponents 
 for a while. 
 
 But there is sometimes a demand for plantations 
 in grass-lands, or lands not previously occupied by 
 forests ; and here recourse must be had to artificial 
 sowing, the -method of which will vary with local 
 conditions and the character of the seed. 
 
 All cattle being of course rigorously excluded, 
 the principal difficulties to contend with are the 
 present occupants of the soil, and temporary lodg- 
 ments of water upon the surface. Some of the 
 finest timber trees spring from most delicate 
 seedlings, as tun, sissoo, eucalyptus. These can 
 hardly struggle through rank grass, nor can they 
 stand being submerged for a few hours at this 
 stage, nor, on the other hand, can they struggle 
 through a drought of a few weeks' duration. 
 
 The system best adapted to overcome these 
 difficulties in ordinary grass-land is that of turning 
 over the sod grass to grass, and sowing on the in- 
 verted sod. If the sod is taken thick enough 
 
SOWING. I/ 
 
 five or six inches there will not only be no seed 
 of indigenous plants on the new surface, but the 
 sown seed coming up on an elevation of a few 
 inches above the surrounding soil, the seedling 
 plants have no foes to contend with in their first 
 stages. 
 
 In irrigated plantations, or where operations are 
 on such a large scale as to necessitate preparing 
 the ground before the rains commence, the best way 
 to give effect to this principle is to trench the land 
 in lines at distances proportioned to the rapidity of 
 growth and the market value of saplings, and with 
 the earth thrown out from the trenches, forming a 
 compact bank sloping back from the edge of the 
 trench, and about six inches high. The irrigation 
 water flowing through these channels, or the rain 
 lodging in them, concentrates all the moisture in 
 the subsoil at the lines, which guards the plants 
 against the evils of a long drought, while their 
 elevation guards them from all danger of being 
 flooded; moreover, the bank preserves for a long 
 period that looseness of structure which facilitates 
 the passage of the young roots. 
 
 If the plantation is irrigated, the chief point 
 demanding attention is that the first watering be 
 sufficiently liberal, and maintained long enough for 
 the ridge to be saturated by upward percolation. 
 
 If the watering be by rainfall, throw the ridge 
 
 r 
 
1 8 NO TES ON FORES TR Y. 
 
 back six inches from the trench, spread it out to a 
 good width, and beat it down compactly, that the 
 rain may not wash the earth into the trenches. 
 This method has proved very successful in the 
 Punjab plains, the cost of collecting seed, trench- 
 ing, banking, and sowing being about eight rupees 
 per acre, with the trenches a foot wide, a foot deep, 
 and fifteen feet apart. 
 
 I know no method of sowing to compare with 
 it where irrigation has to be resorted to ; but in 
 sailaba lands, sown on the subsidence of the river, 
 and free from undergrowth, hardy seedlings need 
 no more preparation of the soil than a light 
 scratching of the plough. 
 
 In localities where the rainfall is insufficient for 
 cultivation, and where irrigation water is not 
 available, there are often large areas of waste 
 dotted with stunted trees Prosopis spicigera, 
 Capparis aphylla, &c. requiring little moisture for 
 their support ; and the question of stocking these 
 uniformly for fuel reserves may sometimes crop up. 
 
 Here the first question for consideration is, Did 
 the trees now standing spring up under conditions 
 of moisture similar to those now existing, or has 
 some once-neighbouring river shifted its channel to 
 a distance, and the withdrawal of moisture destroyed 
 all trees excepting such as had their roots deep 
 down in the soil? In this latter case, it would be, 
 
SOWING. 19 
 
 labour lost to attempt re-stocking it ; but if the con- 
 ditions remain unaltered, such land may possibly 
 be stocked by rigorously excluding all cattle, and 
 scattering the seed in plough-lines in exceptionally 
 moist seasons. I say " possibly," for much depends 
 on uniformity of soil. If the trees now standing 
 are found only on mounds of humus, with the 
 intervening spaces excessively impregnated with 
 saline matters, it would be vain to attempt 
 stocking it. 
 
 In connection with sowing, it should always be 
 borne in mind, that although most tree-seeds, if 
 kept dry, will remain good for an indefinite length 
 of time, if they are once moistened sufficiently 
 to cause them to swell, they will immediately rot, 
 unless sufficient moisture is supplied to foster ger- 
 mination and growth. 
 
 These are general remarks : special seeds require 
 special treatment. Tun-seed must be collected before 
 it is quite ripe, or the capsules will have opened and 
 shed the seed ; but it must not be sown until the 
 capsules have burst, and the seed separated from 
 them. Sal-seed germinates on the tree, and if it 
 is required to sow it in ground not yet prepared, 
 or to keep it until the soil be properly moistened, it 
 may be kept for a few weeks spread out on sand 
 in a shady place, and well sprinkled with water 
 twice a day ; but it will require careful handling 
 
2O NOTES ON FORESTRY. 
 
 in removal. Teak-seed, if collected and sown 
 immediately, will generally take a year or two to 
 germinate ; but if a pit be dug, and the bottom 
 filled to a foot deep with sand, the seed spread 
 thickly on this (2 to 6 in.), and covered with 
 another foot of sand, and the whole mass well 
 watered, it will be found, on opening it at the ex- 
 piration of three or four weeks, that germination 
 has already commenced. If it be now taken out 
 and sown, it will spring up almost immediately, 
 provided it be kept well watered. Many of my 
 readers will probably be acquainted with other 
 peculiarities of other seeds, but we want a ready 
 means of communicating such small but not un- 
 important items of experience. 
 
 In any ordinary system of sowing, we cannot 
 count on more than a small and irregular per- 
 centage of the seed germinating ; we have conse- 
 quently to sow far more seed numerically than 
 we want trees. This involves an early and unrepro- 
 ductive thinning, or the plants are left to struggle 
 with each other until the thinnings have a market 
 value. This struggle, which ends in the weaker- 
 plants succumbing, is always carried on at some 
 little cost to the survivors, but its lasting injury 
 is inappreciable if the thinnings in the next sub- 
 sequent stages are conducted with prudence and 
 moderation. 
 
SO WING. 2 1 
 
 On these grounds many foresters advocate the 
 resort to planting for the more valuable trees a 
 system which admits of the plants being placed 
 at once at the required distances apart; and al- 
 though it requires a greater first outlay, this is 
 supposed to be well compensated for by the 
 saving of cost of early thinning, and the more 
 uniform and healthy development of the planta- 
 tion. Moreover, where seed of the required variety 
 is scarce, the greater care which it is possible to 
 give to the preparation of soil in nurseries renders 
 it often possible to stock a plantation on this 
 system with five per cent, of the seed that would be 
 required to sow it. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 PLANTING. 
 
 THE first step preparatory to planting is the 
 formation of nurseries, for the proper irrigation 
 of which some provision is generally necessary. 
 
 The soil should be thoroughly well worked, and 
 divided into small beds : long and narrow ones 
 are the most convenient. These beds should be 
 raised, and the water allowed to flow in the channels 
 between them, just rising over their surface if 
 they are too wide for the water to find its way 
 through them by capillary attraction. If the 
 soil is dry at the commencement of operations, 
 it should be well irrigated before a spade is put 
 into it : dry soil can never be properly worked. 
 
 Where irrigation is not available, and the rain- 
 fall scanty, it may be desirable to sow rather in 
 sunk than in raised beds, to economise all the 
 moisture ; but measures should be taken to drain 
 such beds in the event of a heavy rainfall. 
 
 The best manure for nursery beds is leaf-mould, 
 but many authorities deprecate its employment, 
 especially for plants that have afterwards to be 
 
PLANTING. 23 
 
 removed to a poor soil. I do not quite agree with 
 this view, believing, rather, that the stronger and 
 more vigorous a plant is, the better will it be able 
 to cope with hardships ; but some two or three 
 weeks before a plant is removed, it is desirable to 
 check the water supply to prevent the formation 
 of too succulent shoots, and this remark is espe- 
 cially applicable to transplanting from a richer to a 
 poorer soil. 
 
 The beds being prepared, the seed may be sown 
 broadcast, and covered in either with a small garden 
 rake, or by lightly sprinkling fine mould over the 
 surface; but a better mode, because more convenient 
 for removing the plants, is to sow thickly in lines 
 6 to 12 in. apart. 
 
 These lines are trenches half an inch to an inch 
 deep, according to the size of the seed, small seed 
 being always very lightly covered ; but I get the 
 best results from ridge -and-furrow beds, sowing on 
 the top of the ridge. 
 
 With the exception of oaks and walnuts, which 
 an occasionally transplanted three or four times, 
 and allowed to attain a height of 8 to 12 ft. before 
 they are removed to the forest, plants are seldom 
 kept more than three years in the nursery ; but 
 three-year old plants in a European nursery rarely 
 exceed 18 in. in height. Seedlings of one year 
 old are sometimes transplanted to their place in 
 
24 A TES ON FOKES TR Y. 
 
 the forest, either singly or in bunches of three to 
 live. Others transplant these at 8 to 10 in. apart 
 in the nursery, removing them to the forest the 
 second year, planting them singly ; while others 
 prefer transplanting them a second time in the 
 nursery at 9 to 12 in. apart, removing them to 
 the foresj: the third year. These frequent trans- 
 plantings cause the roots to be much branched, 
 which enables them the more readily to assimi- 
 late food when removed to changed conditions, 
 and facilitates their removal by preventing the 
 formation of too deep a top root. 
 
 This system, which may be advantageously 
 adopted for the cultivation of deodar and other 
 hill-trees, involves generally too long a period 
 for trees on the Plains. Many of our trees, if 
 sown in nurseries in March or April, will reach 
 a height of 1 to 2 ft. by the middle of July, 
 and require to be planted out immediately, 
 otherwise the labour of removing them becomes 
 too costly. For forest work, I do not think it 
 necessary to keep any of our stock plants more 
 than one year in the nursery, unless for planting 
 in rank grass-jungles ; and here it is generally 
 cheaper to put out the plants at 6 to 8 ft. high, 
 than to clear the jungles. As soon as the trees 
 meet overhead, the undergrowth will die out, 
 and leave a clean forest floor. 
 
PLANTING. 25 
 
 Almost infinitely various are the methods 
 adopted in the final planting-out; but the prin- 
 cipal points for consideration are, first, whether 
 the soil is to be loosened throughout, or only 
 in strips or spots ; secondly, whether the mois- 
 ture is scant or superfluous. 
 
 If it is determined to work the ground over 
 the whole surface, it should receive two or three 
 ploughings with a native plough, be cleaned of 
 weeds, and then turned over with the hoe to a 
 depth of eight or ten inches. 
 
 If the ground is to be worked in strips only, 
 it is better to plough over the whole surface, and 
 then with the hoe dig up the strips intended to 
 be planted. A convenient width for these strips 
 is 5 to 8 ft., with interspaces of similar width ; the 
 guiding principle being, to have the strips wide 
 enough to carry a double row of plants, and the 
 interspaces not so wide as to leave room for 
 marketable poles to be grown between the strips. 
 Such wide strips not only involve waste of land, but 
 tend to the too early development of lateral branches. 
 
 When the soil is not easily worked, or where, 
 from the absence of water, it is impossible to get 
 it ploughed before the planting season, trenches 
 a foot deep may be dug at 10 to 15 ft. apart for 
 quick-growing trees, and at 5 to 8 ft. for such trees 
 as grow slowly at first. 
 
26 NOTES ON FORESTRY. 
 
 Planting is usually conducted during the rains ; 
 and if the soil is liable to be submerged for any 
 period, the soil from the trenches should be thrown 
 up, and a compact bank formed at the edge of 
 the trench. In the strips, the soil can either be 
 thrown up from the outer edges on to the centre, 
 or, in the wider strips, from both the outer edges 
 and the centre, so as to form a double ridge. 
 
 In planting in spots, which is the most economi- 
 cal method, holes 10 to 12 in. deep are made at the 
 intervals at which it is determined to plant: 5 to 
 8ft. is a convenient distance for the Plains. Mak- 
 ing these holes with native implements is generally 
 a costly one compared with the quantity of earth 
 removed. There is no room for the hoe to reach 
 the bottom, and resort is generally had to the 
 rumba to finish the holes a method involving a 
 ridiculously large outlay, a coolie being employed 
 the whole day in making twenty or 
 thirty holes. If the soil be first well 
 soaked, a good man will make 250 holes 
 a day with the semi-cylindrical-shaped 
 spade figured in the margin a rate 
 which admits of holes being made at 
 time of planting. This is made wholly 
 of iron, the blade being about 8 in. in the 
 curve, and being inserted into the soil 
 to the required depth, a twist is given which 
 
PLANTING. 27 
 
 carries the blade round the whole circle, when 
 the earth can be raised with the spade in one 
 piece. This implement is useful in removing 
 seedlings of rare trees from the nursery. 
 
 On hill-slopes, planting in spots is the usual 
 method. A cord, 
 knotted at the required 
 distances, marks the 
 spots to be planted ; 
 and the soil is dug 
 out from the face of 
 the hill as in the dia- 
 gram, so as to make 
 a flat surface for the 
 
 roots to rest on. This 
 operation should always 
 be carried on from the top of the hill down- 
 wards, otherwise the plants are in danger of being 
 trodden on. 
 
 I 
 
 REMOVING THE PLANTS. 
 
 A fruitful source of failure in planting opera- 
 tions on the Plains is the injury caused to the 
 roots and young shoots by exposure during re- 
 moval, which may be guarded against by attention 
 to the following directions. 
 
 Transplant only during rainy or cloudy weather, 
 or in the evening after four o'clock. 
 
2 8 NO TES ON FORES TK Y. 
 
 Provide a few large earthen pans, about a foot 
 deep, and in these mix a compost of fresh cow- 
 dung and water to the consistence of cream. Then 
 dig out the plants, first cutting away the earth in 
 front of, the lines to the full depth of the roots. 
 If several plants are held together in one lump of 
 earth, do not pull them apart, but raise the clod, 
 and drop it, when the plants will fall apart without 
 injury to the roots. Immerse them immediately 
 in the compost-pans, leaving them there until a 
 coolie-load is ready. Then place the plants in 
 baskets on a layer of fresh-cut grass or herbage, 
 covering them over with similar material. In this 
 state they may be carried to the forest without 
 risk ; but more should not be despatched at once 
 than can be planted in an hour, unless the distance 
 is great and the weather damp. 
 
 If the plants be kept without water a week or 
 two before removal, it will check the formation of 
 tender shoots, and thereby lessen the risk ; but the 
 beds may be watered the day before the plants are 
 wanted, as this will facilitate their removal. 
 
 These appear but trifling matters, but attention 
 or inattention to them constitutes all the difference 
 between success and failure. 
 
PLANTING. 
 
 2 9 
 
 PLANTING IN THE FIELD. 
 
 Trees are generally planted either in quadrate or 
 quincunx order, and the spots are conveniently 
 marked by triangles of the 
 required dimensions, made 
 by tying three sticks or 
 stout reeds together ; for 
 the former a right-angled 
 triangle, for the latter an 
 equilateral triangle. 
 
 A guiding line, A B, 
 having been first laid out, 
 the position of subsequent B 
 lines is easily maintained, a 
 
 little pains being 
 
 taken to instruct the coolies at the outset. 
 
3<D NOTES ON FORESTRY. 
 
 In soil already worked with plough or hoe, 
 planting may be performed with the hoe, which, on 
 the spots being marked, is struck in, and the earth 
 behind the blade drawn towards the striker suffi- 
 ciently to make room before for the insertion of the 
 plant, which is then placed down in front of the 
 blade, on removal of which, the soil, if loose, falls 
 back in its place, and should be firmly pressed 
 down round the roots. 
 
 In planting in holes in unworked land, one man 
 walks before and makes the holes, and another, 
 following him with the basket of plants, first 
 throws a little loose earth into the hole, places 
 the plant, holding it upright with one hand, while 
 he breaks in the arth with the other; and the 
 hole being filled, the earth is firmly beaten in. 
 If this latter precaution is neglected, the plants 
 will die unless the duty is performed by an early 
 shower. 
 
 There is no difficulty whatever in planting, but 
 the mode adopted must be suited to the local con- 
 ditions of soil and climate; but to secure success 
 with economy, care must be taken to organise the 
 labour at first, so that one man shall not have to 
 wait for the other. 
 
 In 1871-72, I observe in the Punjab Annual Re- 
 port, that 871 acres were planted in the Changa 
 Manghu plantation in seven days a result that 
 
PLANTING. 3 1 
 
 could not have been attained without a well-organ- 
 ised system. 
 
 In light alluvial soils, or in soil that has been 
 loosened, a little iron-sheathed wooden implement, 
 as in the margin, does 
 very well for small plants, 
 and can be used by women 
 and boys. This is inser- 
 ted in the soil, and worked 
 backwards and forwards 
 until the hole is large 
 enough to receive the plant, which being placed, and 
 held upright with one hand, the implement is again 
 inserted at a few inches' distance, and the soil thrown 
 forward around the roots. It is not necessary to 
 fill up this second hole, which forms a little water 
 reservoir. 
 
 In provinces in which there are winter frosts, 
 it will rarely be necessary, and always dangerous, 
 to water plants from November to February in- 
 clusive a point first impressed upon me by Dr 
 Brandis, and amply confirmed by subsequent obser- 
 vation. Of course, care will be taken to conduct 
 planting operations only when the soil is suffi- 
 ciently moist to foster development, or when the 
 means of irrigation are immediately at hand. 
 
 In planting in coarse grass-lands, it is a good 
 plan to make the hole three or four inches less than 
 
NOTES ON FORESTRY. 
 
 the required depth, and then cutting a circular 
 sod of fifteen to eighteen inches diameter, divide 
 
 it across the middle, 
 and invert it so as 
 to embrace the 
 plant as shown in 
 the annexed section. 
 ir This will secure a 
 free space around 
 the plant, admit the 
 needful light, and preserve it from having to 
 struggle with the grass ; and if the soil be too 
 moist at the season of planting, the plant, instead 
 of being lowered into a hole, may be just rested 
 on the ground-level, and sufficient soil be heaped 
 up round the roots to fix it firmly. 
 
 A great advantage in nursery operations is the 
 possibility of bestowing more care on the manipu- 
 lation of the soil than can be given to forest areas, 
 but even in nursery beds it is difficult to give that 
 extreme care which some fine and rare seeds re- 
 quire that is, if we would have a plant for every 
 good seed ; as, for example, with the eucalyptus, 
 with which, operations being for the most part 
 on a limited scale, it is better to resort to pots. 
 Seedling pots should be large, and have a large 
 hole in the bottom ; they should be filled the first 
 third with broken fragments of brick or pottery, 
 
PLANTING. 33 
 
 and the remainder with friable loam mixed with 
 well-decomposed leaf-mould. 
 
 The seed, being sprinkled rather thickly on the 
 surface, should be very lightly covered, and either 
 placed out in the rain, or kept in a shady spot and 
 freely sprinkled with water from a watering-pot 
 morning and evening. When the seedlings have 
 attained a height of two or three inches, they should 
 be transplanted into small pots singly, or if the 
 operation is on a larger scale, into a finely-pre- 
 pared nursery bed, at three or four inches to a foot 
 apart, where they should stay until the following 
 rains, when they may be taken out singly with the 
 holemaker, without disturbing the earth around 
 the roots. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THINNING. 
 
 IN self-sown natural forests, and even in arti- 
 ficially raised plantations, we find in the first 
 stage as many as from fifty to a hundred plants 
 occupying the space required by one mature tree. 
 This is as it should be, for the plants being 
 close together, can develop only upwards towards 
 the light, and thereby acquire at the outset that 
 tall straight form which results in the greatest 
 percentage of timber, and generally in the most 
 valuable timber ; but it is evident that before any 
 one of these fifty or a hundred trees, as it may 
 be, can reach maturity, the others must be all 
 removed. 
 
 Natural forests of gregarious trees thin them- 
 selves ; that is, there is a struggle for existence, in 
 which the weakest succumb at every stage, thereby 
 making room for the development of the dominant 
 trees for another stage. This is done by every 
 second or third tree rising above its fellows, and 
 these dominant trees, spreading out their branches 
 
THINNING. 35 
 
 towards each, other, exclude the light from those 
 left behind, which cease growing, and gradually 
 die ; and this process being repeated at every stage 
 of growth, the fifty or a hundred saplings are at 
 last reduced to one mature tree. 
 
 In thinning forests of gregarious trees, the 
 German forest officer usually leaves the matter to 
 Nature, until the poles have attained a market 
 value which leaves a profit on cutting out, and 
 then he follows Nature closely by cutting out only 
 those trees which he sees are being domineered 
 over, trees of useless timber which have sprung 
 up spontaneously, or distorted or damaged trees, 
 which, although they may dominate, will not 
 make good timber ; but when the remaining trees 
 have been thus drawn up to nearly their full 
 height, it is sometimes thought advisable to thin 
 out sharply to the extent of 50 per cent., or as 
 much as will leave each remaining tree the neces- 
 sary space for its full development, by which 
 means larger timber is secured than is to be found 
 in forests in which the trees are allowed to struggle 
 with each other to the end. 
 
 In Scotland a somewhat different method is 
 commonly pursued. The Scotch forester frequently 
 thins out the best-developed stems, on the theory 
 that he thus not only secures a better immediate 
 return, but that the reserved trees, although they 
 
36 NO TES ON FORES TR Y. 
 
 have lagged a little behind in the struggle, will 
 almost immediately recover lost ground after the 
 free admission of light. 
 
 But all trees are not naturally gregarious. 
 Many valuable timbers, although sometimes found 
 struggling with other trees in close forests, will 
 never under such conditions acquire those noble 
 dimensions attained by such trees growing singly. 
 Such trees are light-loving, and, if grown in dense 
 plantations, will draw each other up to an extent 
 that renders them all spindly and unhealthy ; and 
 a sharp thinning out, if delayed too long, instead 
 of remedying the evil, will sometimes result in 
 their all going down before a strong wind. They 
 have grown beyond their strength, and are unable 
 to withstand the violence of the storm. Such trees 
 require not only an abundance of light, but a 
 broad-spreading crown, with ample foliage for 
 absorption of atmospheric food. Nevertheless, as 
 long timber is usually a desideratum, it is advan- 
 tageous to grow such trees in plantations; but 
 while planting them closely enough to encourage 
 their drawing each other up, thus fostering a 
 straight upward growth, we should never leave 
 them so close that they crowd each other. 
 Thinning out should be resorted to directly their 
 branches come in contact with each other, and 
 when the forest has attained the required height, 
 
THINNING. 37 
 
 the thinning out should be so sharp as to leave 
 every tree standing alone. 
 
 The evil effects of neglected thinnings may fre- 
 quently be seen in artificial clumps of sissoo in the 
 Punjab, in which the trees have been allowed to 
 draw each other up until a dead-lock has set in, 
 and increment almost entirely ceased in all but 
 the outer trees of the grove, whose cubic contents, 
 taken singly, will sometimes equal that of half-a- 
 dozen of the poles within. 
 
 After such a sharp thinning out as above indi- 
 cated, the forest floor is advantageously covered 
 with a shade-loving undergrowth or coppice. This 
 shades the ground from the direct rays of the 
 sun, preserves its moisture, enriches it with fresh 
 deposits of humus, thereby fitting it for the recep- 
 tion of a new crop after the timber shall have 
 been felled, and gives at the same time a money 
 return while the timber is growing. 
 
 In Germany I saw the hornbeam much grown 
 under oak ; and for this country, the tun and mul- 
 berry are shade-loving trees with serviceable woods, 
 that might be advantageously grown under similar 
 conditions. 
 
 The German forest officer, while directing thin- 
 ning operations, is always anxious to clear out all 
 trees of inferior classes that threaten to crowd out 
 more valuable timbers ; and by persistence in this 
 
38 NO TES ON f ORES TR Y. 
 
 course all valueless trees are at length exterminated. 
 In India we have forests of mixed timbers, of which 
 perhaps only one kind is in great demand ; this one 
 kind has been frequently treated on precisely the same 
 method adopted by the skilled forester for the sup- 
 pression of inferior kinds. It has been persistently 
 cut out as soon as the trees attained a marketable 
 value, and the inferior varieties left in undisputed 
 possession of the soil. If this course be persisted 
 in, the extinction of valuable timbers in mixed 
 forests is only a question of time. 
 
 It is quite true that such trees have no value 
 unless they are felled, but the fellings should be 
 arranged on such a method as to provide for the 
 appearance of their seedlings under conditions 
 which admit of their development unhampered by 
 the pressure of tall trees, with which they could 
 not successfully contend. 
 
 In all mixed forests in which there are only 
 one or two valuable species, and those not in pre- 
 ponderance, there should be periodical thinning 
 inspections, during which every tree threatening to 
 interfere with the healthful development of trees 
 of the more valuable classes should be remorselessly 
 cleared off, or at least girdled, if they have abso- 
 lutely no market value ; and further, all valuable 
 trees, within twenty years of coming to the axe, 
 should have a space cleared round them, either 
 
THINNING. 39 
 
 by simply girdling the neighbouring trees, or by 
 felling and burning them on the ground, which 
 latter is an excellent preparation of the soil for 
 seed germination ; and then, on the removal of 
 the valuable tree, we should have a clump of its 
 seedlings, some one of which would survive to 
 replace it. 
 
 By attention to these rules we assjst valuable 
 varieties in the struggle with the inferior, and 
 pave the way for their ultimate predominance. 
 
 Finally, under this head the golden motto for 
 the young forester is " Do not do too much." 
 It is quite true that in a young forest, if every tree 
 has ample room for further development, it will 
 make more wood than it would in a close forest ; 
 but, on the other hand, it must be borne in mind, 
 first, that the ground would support two or more 
 trees in the place of one ; secondly, that by foster- 
 ing early lateral development at the expense of 
 height, we reduce the ultimate yield ; and thirdly, 
 the admission of too much light fosters the 
 appearance of a frequently noxious, and some- 
 times in India an impenetrable, undergrowth. 
 Even damaged and crooked trees and inferior 
 species, although marked for removal, should not 
 be cut out until they threaten tq interfere with 
 the growth of more valuable trees ; and in thin- 
 ning or girdling in mixed forests to foster the 
 
4O NOTES ON FORESTRY. 
 
 spread of valuable timbers, care must be taken to 
 perform the operation with an eye to that gradual 
 admission of light indicated in the chapters on 
 sowing. 
 
 If we could unravel the history of any pure 
 forest of gregarious trees, we should probably find 
 that in some remote past it was a mixed forest, in 
 which many varieties struggled together for pos- 
 session of the soil, and that it became a pure 
 unmixed forest in consequence of the now domi- 
 nant variety having been endowed with special 
 qualities, such as greater rapidity of first 
 growth, greater height, greater longevity, greater 
 strength to resist snow -brook, a form which 
 did not admit of any weight of snow resting 
 on its branches, or some one quality or com- 
 bination of qualities which, specially adapting it 
 to local conditions, resulted in its final triumph 
 and the extinction of all less favoured varieties. 
 
 This same struggle is still going on in all mixed 
 forests, and by cutting out only the more valued 
 varieties, we assist the less valued in the struggle ; 
 but, recognising Nature's mode of operations, we 
 should always study to foster the spread of those 
 species and varieties most in demand. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 FELLING. 
 
 UNDER this head little need be said. In felling on 
 hillsides, it is better to fell the tree against the 
 hill, both because it is less apt to damage it, and 
 because in this position it is easiest worked out 
 when the forest is being restored by natural repro- 
 duction. 
 
 The principal point requiring attention is to 
 conduct the operation of felling in such a manner 
 as to cause the least possible injury to young 
 plants. For instance, in felling on a hillside, we 
 should not begin at the bottom, and then, after 
 a young growth had come up, slide the timber 
 from above over it. Moreover, where the hill- 
 side is too steep to admit of sliding down the 
 timber without damage, by beginning above we 
 can make use of the lower trees as helps in lower- 
 ing the log gradually. 
 
 Timber felled among, or allowed to slide over, 
 quite young seedlings does not cause much dam- 
 
42 NO TES ON FORES TR Y. 
 
 age, as these young seedlings will generally rise 
 again after the pressure is removed; but in a 
 young growth of from six to thirty feet high, 
 timber can hardly be felled without damage. 
 Among older trees, again, there is generally room 
 to fell timber without injury. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 TIMBER TRANSPORT. 
 
 A SIMPLE but important fact to be borne in mind 
 is, that logs move much, more freely without their 
 bark than with it, and that, being barked, they 
 will travel much more freely on each other than 
 on the ground. Also, that long logs, once set in 
 motion (endways), will slide down a lower incline 
 than short logs. Large timbers will also slide at 
 a lower incline than poles. 
 
 To move timber on level ground. Timber is most 
 economically transported in water, but forests on 
 the Plains are frequently some miles from the 
 nearest river, and often in remote localities, where 
 gharries fit to carry a large log are not procurable, 
 and the roads perhaps muddy or through heavy 
 sand. To move a clearing of say 5000 logs from 
 the forest to the river, and over some miles of bad 
 road, would be a work of immense expense if 
 each log were rolled down singly, but the labour 
 is infinitely lightened if every log is converted 
 into a temporary rail for the others to travel on. 
 
44 
 
 NOTES ON FORESTRY. 
 
 Beginning in the forest, roll up the logs so as 
 to form a double line of rails, always placing the 
 thick end of the log foremost ; carry this through 
 the centre of the clearing, or where the logs lie 
 thickest ; then construct branch lines from this 
 at various angles, so as to reach to all parts of the 
 clearing, and so many of these that the unemployed 
 logs will not have to be rolled far to reach one of 
 the lines. 
 
 On completion of this, roll the remaining logs 
 on to the rails by means of a pair of stout saplings, 
 
TIMBER TRANSPORT. 45 
 
 and along the rails to the end of the main line, 
 where they are rolled off, and laid down in con- 
 tinuation of the line. The scattered logs hav- 
 ing been all removed, begin at the ends of the 
 branch lines, raising the last logs one after the 
 other on to the rails, and rolling them away to 
 the end of the main line, employing them all in 
 their order to lengthen the line, until the river is 
 reached. 
 
 On coming to an incline downwards, the logs 
 would run away, and acquire an impetus that 
 would probably throw them off the line to a 
 considerable distance. To obviate this, place the 
 rails close together down the incline, and turning 
 the travelling logs round endways on coming to 
 this point, slide them along the groove between 
 the pairs of rails. A few short rollers will 
 probably be necessary to slide the log along before 
 it has acquired an impetus, but once set in motion 
 it will glide along rapidly to the foot of the 
 descent. 
 
 If there is an ascent steep enough to render it 
 difficult to roll the log up from behind, take two 
 ropes of 50 to 100 ft. in length, and securing these 
 by means of grappling-hooks firmly driven into the 
 butts of the rails ahead, bring the other ends 
 back under the log and round over (vide the 
 bottom line of rails in the last Plate), when the 
 
46 NOTES ON FORESTRY. 
 
 coolies, taking hold of the free ends, walk forward 
 with them, rolling the log after them. 
 
 This is the best way I know for getting a log 
 uphill; In the colonies, heavy logs are moved 
 in the forest in this manner by yoking a team of 
 bullocks to each rope. 
 
 Moving timber out of the Hills. If the timber 
 is wanted at the foot of the hill, and the angle 
 not more than 45, and the surface free from rocky 
 protuberances, the tree, on being barked and 
 stripped of its branches, may be set in motion, 
 butt foremost,, and allowed to slide to the bottom. 
 The tree should be left its entire length, as it will 
 thus run much better and straighter than if cut 
 up into logs, which are apt to wheel round and 
 get caught and shaken. Of course, only straight 
 timber can be worked out this way; and this 
 being set in motion, will travel down an angle of 
 10. At low angles, rollers are required to set the 
 log in motion. 
 
 If the angle of incline is higher than 45 or 
 the surface rugged, the timber would be shaken 
 and damaged by this method, and it is better to 
 expend labour in lowering it gradually. This is 
 done by means of four stout ropes attached to 
 grappling-hooks, two of which are fixed in the 
 foremost end of the timber, and two at some 
 distance from the other end. . Strong hooks, about 
 
TIMBER TRANSPORT. 47 
 
 a foot in length and two inch thickness, are 
 required. The hooks being firmly driven into the 
 timber, secure the two foremost 
 ropes each round a tree on either 
 side of the log, leaving 15 or 20 ft. 
 slack for the log to run away with. 
 The after ropes are also carried each 
 round a tree, but instead of being 
 made fast, they are drawn up nearly 
 close, and one or two turns taken 
 round the trees. A roller is next placed under 
 the butt of the log, which is set in motion by 
 rolling it from side to side, or dragged forward 
 by picks driven into it. The men at the after 
 ropes slack away gradually, until the foremost 
 ropes stop the log, when the ropes are moved 
 forward, and the process repeated until the bottom 
 is reached. If the log is brought up on a declivity 
 so steep that it would not stand while the ropes 
 are being shifted, the hinder ropes are made fast, 
 and hold it while the foremost are being shifted 
 ahead. Six-inch rope is required for heavy timber, 
 and is less likely to snap than chain. 
 
 In extensive hill forests, where the slope is not 
 too great, timber is best transported by slides, 
 which are roads cut in the face of the hill, at 
 an angle of 8 to 15. The timber above the 
 slides is lowered in the manner above described, 
 
48 NO TES ON FORES TR Y. 
 
 laid lengthways along the outer edge of the road, 
 and secured with pegs driven into the ground. On 
 completion of this parapet, the remaining logs are 
 lowered one by one into the slide, and set in motion 
 with the assistance of rollers, when they shoot 
 down like an arrow from a bow. At the close, 
 the parapet logs are taken up one after the other, 
 and shot down in the same manner. 
 
 Such slides are impracticable round sharp 
 points or deep indentations, but it is sometimes 
 possible to meet the latter difficulty by extending 
 the slide sloping up the opposite hill. This stops 
 the logs, which can then be turned round, and set 
 in motion in the required direction. 
 
 Snow-slides require little labour to construct. 
 Timber will travel over these at an angle of only 
 5, and may also be shot over the steepest 
 declivities, covered with a good depth of snow, 
 without danger. They are extensively employed 
 in the Bavarian Alps. 
 
 Water transport. In small rivulets, not more 
 than 20 to 30 ft. wide, in the Black Forest, I have 
 seen rafts of a thousand pine-trees rushing down 
 at the rate of 6 to 10 miles an hour. The rivers 
 are first cleared of the larger rock masses and 
 impediments, and the water stored in reservoirs to 
 admit of a flood being sent down when a raft is 
 ready for despatch. Dams are also constructed 
 
TIMBER TRANSPORT. 
 
 49 
 
 at intervals along the streams, and opened as the 
 raft approaches. 
 
 These rafts are constructed in joints, each of 
 which is composed of a number of timbers of 
 uniform length, as many of these being bound to- 
 gether as will occupy nearly the whole width of 
 the stream. 
 
 The logs are prepared for binding together by 
 being holed at both ends. One hole at top, and 
 one on each side below, is cut out with the axe or 
 adze, and two to three-inch augurs used to con- 
 nect the top hole with the two bottom ones. 
 
 Bottom. Section with bands in their places. 
 
 The logs of each joint are then firmly lashed 
 together with hazel rods 8 to 10 ft. long, and 4 to 
 6 in. girth at thickest, rendered tougher by a little 
 roasting while green, and then twisted until the 
 fibres partially separate, after which they are kept 
 in water until required. Creepers are probably 
 the best available bands in Northern India, canes 
 in the South. 
 
 Each log, it will be observed, has two bands at 
 
 D 
 
50 NOTES ON FORESTRY. 
 
 each end, one to lash it to the log on either side, 
 and, after being thus lashed together, the free ends, 
 of the bands serve to connect the several joints ; 
 but they are supplemented by two other bands 
 passed through the holes for this purpose expressly. 
 The holes, must thus always be large enough to 
 admit of two bands being passed through them. 
 
 These bands are not as pliable as rope, and can- 
 not be securely fastened without the aid of a good 
 strong pick, the point of which is used for making 
 a passage, as sailors use marling-spikes, and the 
 hammer to tighten the knots by striking upon the 
 bight. 
 
 Each joint is usually constructed separately on 
 the bank, then launched and lashed to the joint in 
 front of it. 
 
 The raft tapers to the front, the leading joint 
 consisting of three or four saplings only of 6 to 8 in. 
 diameter. This joint is made with great care, the 
 fastenings being supplemented by a wooden pin 
 passed through all the logs breadthways. From 
 
 near the point, also, a light spar extends back for 
 some feet over the second joint, rising at such an 
 
TIMBER TRANSPORT. 51 
 
 angle as to admit of its being breast-high behind. 
 One or two men stand by this, and, by pressing 
 it downwards, keep the nose from diving to the 
 bottom after a sharp fall in the river. The prin- 
 cipal attention is devoted to the fore part of the 
 raft, for if this is kept clear and in mid-stream, 
 which is effected by men armed with poles to guide 
 it, the after joints require little attention. Even in 
 sharp curves, if the fore part is kept clear, the after 
 part will follow, although it may at times rise 
 over the bank. The construction of the raft gives 
 a flexibility which admits of this. Still it will 
 sometimes happen that a raft is suddenly brought 
 up, and if no provision were made for this, the 
 after joints are in danger of snapping their bands, 
 and rushing over the fore part. This is guarded 
 against by men stationed on the penultimate joint, 
 in which the centre log is a couple of feet shorter 
 than the others. Lashed to the end of this log, 
 and to the log on either side, is an upright beam, 
 which ordinarily inclines forward at top, in 
 which position it just grazes the bottom, but on a 
 shock being felt forwards, or the word being 
 passed, the beam is drawn into a more upright 
 position, when its lower end strikes into the bottom 
 and anchors the raft. On the passage from rapid to 
 stiller water, too (id est), where the after part of the 
 raft is in a stronger current than the fore part, the 
 
52 NO TES ON FORES TR Y. 
 
 beam is constantly employed to retard the progress 
 of the after part, and prevent its overrunning the 
 fore part. 
 
 In the Black Forest, I observed that the rafts- 
 men simply struck their axes into this beam to get 
 a hold of it, but it would probably be better for 
 inexperienced men to have rope handles attached 
 to it. 
 
 A number of spare bands are always taken to 
 repair mishaps. 
 
 On arrival at the Plains, and before the river 
 deepens or widens very considerably, the raft is 
 anchored at the bank, and its construction altered, 
 because, in its articulated form, the after part, no 
 longer restrained within narrow limits, is liable to 
 swing round and render the navigation unmanage- 
 able. The raft must now be made stiff, which is 
 done by breaking up the after joints, and 
 employing the logs by lashing them fore and aft 
 the remaining joints ; and if the river is very 
 sinuous in its course, it may be necessary to break 
 up each raft into two or three rafts. 
 
 The course is now less rapid, but also less 
 dangerous and difficult, and if the timber is 
 light and fuel obtainable at this stage, each raft 
 may be laden with a considerable quantity. 
 
 The rendering our hill-streams navigable for 
 rafts would generally prove a formidable under- 
 
TIMBER TRANSPORT. 53 
 
 taking, and it is probable that, in the present 
 state of our hill forests, the necessary outlay would 
 hardly be justified, excepting, perhaps, in some 
 tributary streams ; but, sooner or later, it must be 
 taken in hand, if we are ever to get a large revenue 
 from our hill forests. 
 
 Some of our hill divisions represent an area of 
 not less than 500 square miles, equal to 320,000 
 acres, and allowing that 100,000 acres only of 
 this were untrammelled forest land, and capable 
 of being clothed with timber, 30 cubic feet per 
 acre per annum, or 3,000,000 cubic feet, is only a 
 moderate out-turn, and quite within the capabilities 
 of such a tract. * 
 
 Such a tract would be equal to five miles on 
 either side of a river fifty miles in length, giving, 
 say, with all its sinuosities, 100 miles of river to 
 clear. Now a tax of an anna per cubic foot on 
 3,000,000 cubic feet would give 187,500 rupees, 
 equal to the interest at 5 per cent, on a first outlay 
 of 20 lacs, and leaving 87,500 for annual repairs ; 
 that is to say, 20,000 rupees per mile might be 
 spent in bringing the river into order, and 
 875 rupees per mile per annum for maintaining 
 it. But when we look at the short and shaken 
 
 * In Hanover, a forest area of 1,184,424 morgen, equal to about 
 840,000 acres, gives a yearly out-turn of 44,686,400 cubic feet, or 
 over 50 cubic feet per acre. 
 
54 NO TES ON FORES TR Y. 
 
 logs that now reach the Plains, and mark the 
 higher rates realised for the few longer logs that 
 sometimes reach the Plains safely, I think we 
 may say confidently that any operations which 
 would enable logs of 60 feet long to reach the 
 market uninjured might be advantageously under- 
 taken at a cost representing a tax of four annas 
 per cubic foot. But the problem is not only to 
 bring the logs down safely, but so cheaply as to 
 create a market for the total annual increment. 
 
 The difficulties are unquestionably very great, 
 and should not be undertaken except on carefully 
 prepared estimates by qualified engineer officers ; 
 but it is not too much to assert that the successful 
 administration of our forests hinges mainly on the 
 facilities for timber transport. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MEASUREMENT OF TIMBER. 
 
 Prostrate logs. The English method, and that 
 usually adopted in this country to determine the 
 cubic contents of a log, is to multiply the length 
 by the square of the quarter girth at the middle. 
 This method is erroneous with round timber, from 
 the fact that the square of the quarter girth is 
 less than the real area of section, which is deter- 
 mined by multiply ing the square 
 of the diameter by '7854. In 
 the accompanying diagram, the 
 side of the square is the quarter 
 girth of the circle, and it will 
 be seen at a glance that the 
 circle has a much greater super- 
 ficies. The difference is, in fact, about 22 per cent., 
 a log 12 inches in diameter having a superficies 
 of 113 inches, while the square of the quarter 
 girth gives 88-J- inches only. This method is 
 nevertheless a very fair one for measuring timber 
 of not more than three feet girth, as the outer 
 
56 NOTES ON FORESTRY. 
 
 slabs are of little value, but in logs of 8 to 12 ft. 
 girth, such as are commonly sold by this Depart- 
 ment, the loss to the seller is considerable. But 
 it must be borne in mind that, as logs approach 
 the four-sided form, the girth increases its propor- 
 tion to the diameter, and the square of the quarter 
 girth gives truer results than the method for 
 determining the contents of cylindrical bodies, 
 which method, if pursued with squared timber, 
 would result in a loss to the seller of 22 per cent. 
 But as the Department generally sells round logs, 
 I would recommend that, when the diameter is 
 over 18 inches, the contents should be determined 
 by multiplying the square of the mean diameter by 
 7854 and by the length. If the mean circumfer- 
 ence is taken, then the square of this multiplied by 
 07958. 
 
 There is yet another source of error and of 
 consequent loss to the seller in this mode, the 
 area of the middle of a tapering log being always 
 less than the mean area. In ordinary timber 
 sales the loss is trifling, as the logs sold rarely vary 
 more than 6 inches in their extreme diameters, 
 on which difference the loss is only 3 inches 
 on the average area, or of one cubic foot in 48 
 feet of length. With 12 inches of difference 
 in the extreme diameters, the loss is 12 inches on 
 average area, or a cubic foot in 12 feet of length; 
 
MEASUREMENT OF TIMBER. 57 
 
 with 18 inches of difference, the loss is 27 inches 
 on mean area, or 3 cubic feet in 16 feet of length, 
 and so on. 
 
 But this difference, which is of little conse- 
 quence in ordinary timber sales, would be a matter 
 of very grave error in estimating the stock on a 
 standing forest of tapering timber, such as pines 
 or deodar for here one fells typical trees, and 
 measures the whole. In the accompanying dia- 
 gram I have endeavoured to render this clear by 
 an analysis of the formation of a tapering spar. 
 
 In this diagram, A is a beam 50 feet long, and 
 with a side of 12 inches throughout, and conse- 
 quently contains 50 cubic feet. B is a wedge 
 reduced from the beam A, and contains 25 cubic 
 feet. C is a pyramid reduced from the wedge B 
 by the abstraction of the two pieces D, and con- 
 tains 16f cubic feet. E is a cone reduced from 
 the pyramid C by rounding off the edges, and its 
 cubic contents are to those of the pyramid as 
 7854 : 1. This relation of the cone to the pyramid 
 being an established one, it will be simpler to 
 employ the latter in looking at the problem. 
 
 Now suppose the pyramid C were the form of 
 the sample trees felled to determine the cubic 
 contents of the forest, and the officer were to 
 proceed to determine its cubic contents in the 
 usual manner, he would measure that tree in the 
 
NOTES ON FORESTRY. 
 
 middle, and get 6 x 6 = 36 in., which, multiplied 
 by the length, 50 ft., and reduced to feet, gives 
 
 ~ = 12 J ft. But the absurdity of this method 
 is apparent if we now cut the log in two pieces of 
 
MEASUREMENT OF T I MB EX. 59 
 
 equal length, when the contents of the thicker 
 piece, measured on this method, gives 9 X 4 25 = 
 
 14^6- ft., or more than the whole- tree measured in 
 one piece. 
 
 I observe that Hopper, in his introduction to his 
 Tables for Timber Measurement, gives a similar 
 instance as an illustration of the peculiarity of 
 timber; but the peculiarity is in the system of 
 measurement, which is based on the erroneous 
 assumption that the mean area of a pyramid 
 or cone is at the middle, as it is in the wedge 
 form B. 
 
 The common mathematical rule for finding the 
 contents of a cone or pyramid is to multiply the 
 length by one-third the area of base. 
 
 To get at the contents of the frustrum of a cone 
 the rule is : Add together the area of the greater 
 and lesser ends, and the mean proportional area, 
 and divide the sum by 3 for the mean area. 
 (The mean proportional is obtained by multiplying 
 the greater by the lesser diameter, and the product 
 by -7854.) For example, the lower half of the 
 cone E is 25 feet long, with 12 in. greater, and 6 in. 
 lesser diameter; then i* + + i^xex x -7864 
 
 = 11 *45, contents of the log. 
 
 By Hopper's method we have the square of the 
 quarter girth (7 2 ) ; then 4 =8*50, showing a 
 
6O NO TES ON FORES TR Y. 
 
 loss of 22 per cent, by taking the quarter girth, and 
 nearly 4 per cent, by taking the area at the middle 
 of the log. 
 
 Either of the three following methods may be 
 substituted for the rule given above, and one of 
 them should always be had recourse to when accu- 
 racy is required : 
 
 Formula 1. To the square of the diameter at the 
 middle, add one- twelfth the square of the difference 
 of the extreme diameters, and multiply by *7854 
 for the mean area, and by the length for the cubic 
 contents. Thus, with the log above measured 
 
 Formula 2. From the mean of the squares of the 
 two extremes deduct one-sixth the square of their 
 difference, and multiply the product by *7854 and 
 by the length. Thus, proceeding with the same 
 
 
 Formula 3. To the square of the mean add one- i 
 third the difference between it and the mean of the 
 square of the extremes ; multiply by "7854 and by 
 the length. Thus- 
 
 Square of the mean, 81. Mean of the squares of 
 the extremes, 144 + 36 = 90; difference 9, one-third 
 
MEASUREMENT OF TIMBER. 
 
 6l 
 
 of which added to 81 gives 84 mean area as before, 
 and this multiplied by 25 for the length, and by 
 7854, gives 11 *45 also. 
 
 To measure standing timber, we require three 
 factors, the diameter at base (usually taken at 
 breast-high to avoid buttresses), the height of the 
 tree, and the form figure of the tree, that is, its 
 relation to a true cylinder. 
 
 The diameter at base is usually taken with 
 a pair of klappe, one arm of which marks the 
 width to which they open. This is much more 
 expeditious and 
 convenient than 
 taking the girth, 
 which can hardly 
 be done well by 
 one man, espe- 
 cially with large 
 timber. Any 
 country carpenter 
 could make one, 
 but care must be taken that the arms 
 have little play in the sockets, otherwise the 
 points open wider than the handles, and the 
 measure chronicled will be below the true 
 measure. 
 
 To measure the height of a tree, several instru- 
 ments have been designed, one of the most con- 
 
62 
 
 NOTES ON FORESTRY. 
 
 venient of which is that figured in the margin. A 
 is a stock about 5 feet long, pointed 
 for insertion in the ground, and 
 mounted at top with a brass ferule, 
 one side of which has a female 
 screw. B is aboard about 6 in. square, 
 divided perpendicularly and hori- 
 zontally into tenths, which ordinarily 
 represent each 10 feet, and is fixed to 
 the upright by a screw in the centre 
 at the back. At the upper edge of 
 the board are two brass uprights, 
 one of which, D, is perforated with 
 a pinhole ; the other, E, is a frame 
 across which a fine wire is stretched 
 on the same parallel as the pinhole. 
 At the right-hand corner, at top, F, 
 is inserted a strong thread of silk, 
 to which a small weight, C, is sus- 
 pended. 
 
 Provided with this instrument, 
 the operator selects a convenient 
 spot from which there is a clear 
 view of the top of the tree; this 
 spot should be nearly on the same 
 level as the tree stands, and about 
 as far from it as the tree is high. 
 Inserting the stock firmly and per- 
 
MEASUREMENT OF TIMBER. 63 
 
 pendicularly into the ground, and screwing on the 
 board, he next measures the distance from the 
 base of the tree ; he then returns to the instru- 
 ment, and being cautious not to move the stock 
 out of the perpendicular, he looks through the pin- 
 hole in the brass upright D, and turns the board 
 round, elevating it in front, until the pinhole, 
 the wire at E, and the top of the tree are in line. 
 He now glances at the figure on the side, which 
 corresponds with his distance from the tree, and 
 looking along its line to the point at which the 
 free swinging cord intersects it, reads off the 
 height on the perpendicular line intersecting this 
 point. 
 
 The board is once more placed horizontally, and 
 the operator, glancing along it to the trunk of the 
 tree, gets his assistant to mark the spot, the 
 distance of which from the ground is added to 
 the figures previously read off, which gives the 
 height. 
 
 In the following diagram, if the distance from 
 the tree be 20 feet, the height given is 9 feet ; 
 if 30 feet, 13 feet; if 50 feet, 21 feet; if 90 feet, 
 39 feet; to which measurements have to be added 
 the height of the operator's eye above the base of 
 the tree, as before explained. 
 
 If the instrument were elevated until the line 
 fell as in the dotted line C, then at 20 feet dis- 
 
NOTES ON FORESTRY. 
 
 tance the height would be 25 feet; at 40 feet 
 
 distance, 46 feet; at 60 feet distance, 68 feet; 
 
 at 90 feet dis- 
 tance, 100 feet; 
 and if the distance 
 were 100 feet, the 
 height could not 
 be read off on the 
 board, but we 
 could treat the 
 100 feet as 50 
 feet, when we find 
 the line reads 56, 
 and twice this, 
 112, would be the 
 height, as is also 
 chronicled by a 
 dotted extension 
 of the board. 
 
 These instru- 
 ments might be 
 made very cheaply 
 
 at Eoorkee, if a number were called for at 
 
 once. 
 
 The form figure indicates the relation of the tree 
 
 to a cylinder. 
 
 In the diagram, fig. 1 is the type of a pine-tree, 
 
 and being a true cone, its relation to a cylinder whose 
 
MEASUREMENT OF TIMBER. 
 
 fio.Z. 
 
 diameter is equal to its diameter at base is as 1 to 3, 
 and its form figure J or '33; but as we take diameter 
 at breast-high, the true form 
 figure will range from *35to *40. 
 
 Fig. 2 is the extreme type 
 of an oak grown in free space, 
 and with its cubic contents 
 equal to those of a cylinder ; 
 and trees ranging between 
 these two extremes would 
 be classed under the form 
 figures -40, -50, &c., to 1-00. 
 
 With these data, height, diameter at base, 
 and form figure, we arrive at the contents of a 
 tree by multiplying the area at base by the height, 
 and the product by the form figure. For example, 
 to get at the contents of a tree 2 feet diameter at 
 base, 70 feet high, and with a form figure of '60, we 
 say2 2 x *7854 x 70 x '60 = 132 nearly, cubic con- 
 tents of the tree. The form figure is usually based 
 on the marketable contents of the tree, including 
 branches, and is thus arrived at for a forest about 
 to be valued : 
 
 Fell half-a-dozen typical specimens, including 
 those of greater and those of smaller diameters ; 
 then taking each tree separately, measure the 
 trunk, or such part of it as is a right geometrical 
 figure, and cut up and weigh all the crooked parts 
 
66 NO TES ON FORES TR Y. 
 
 and marketable branches, which, being converted 
 into cubic feet, and added to the measured portion, 
 the total is divided by the contents of the ideal 
 cylinder, the length of which is equal to the 
 total height of the tree, and the diameter equal to 
 that of the tree at base. The quotient is the form 
 figure, generally expressed by two decimals. For 
 example : If a tree 2 feet diameter at base and 
 90 feet high contains 120 cubic feet timber, we 
 divide 120 by 
 
 2 2 x '7854 X 90 = 2827)1 20'00(-42, the form figure. 
 11308 
 6920 
 5754 
 
 We have seen above that a true cone would be 
 represented by the form figure *33, but true cones 
 are rarely found in the forest; the spar tapers 
 irregularly, and specimen trunks should always be 
 cut up into 10-feet lengths and measured separ- 
 ately. The form of all the sample trees being thus 
 severally arrived at, their mean is taken as the 
 form figure of that forest. While the operation 
 is in hand, it is as well to determine the relative 
 proportion of timber and fuel. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 TAKING STOCK. 
 
 THIS is the determination of the cubic contents 
 of growing timber in a forest, and is arrived at 
 with tolerable preciseness by measuring every tree 
 with the aid of the three factors indicated in the 
 last chapter, or approximately by determining the 
 contents of a measured strip selected as a fair 
 average. 
 
 If it is determined to proceed in this manner, 
 viz., by actual measurement of every tree, or of 
 every tree in a selected plot or strip, it will be 
 convenient to operate in parties of four, two pro- 
 vided with klappe to take diameters, one with a 
 book or sheet of paper to note them down, and 
 one with an axe to mark the boundary trees as 
 they are measured ; unless it be a sample strip, 
 when it is better to have the boundary trees 
 marked at time of plotting it. 
 
 The book or paper is ruled with columns for 
 various diameters. If a valuation survey is re- 
 quired, there should be a column for every advanc- 
 
68 
 
 NOTES ON FORESTRY. 
 
 ing inch ; but if the measurements are required 
 only as the basis of a working-plan, each column 
 may embrace two or three inches of difference, 
 thus 
 
 6 
 
 8 
 
 10 
 
 12 
 
 14 
 
 16 
 
 18 
 
 21 
 
 24 
 
 27 
 
 30 
 
 33 
 
 36 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 , 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 The site of operations having been selected, the 
 party should commence with a strjp of fifty to 
 a hundred feet wide along one of the boundaries, 
 the men with the klappe on either side, the writer 
 in the middle, and the axeman in close attend- 
 ance on the inner klappe man. 
 
 The party now marches straight forward ; the 
 klappe men grasp each tree in rotation, and read 
 off the numbers in an audible voice; the writer 
 makes a stroke in the corresponding column, and 
 draws every fifth stroke diagonally across the other 
 four for convenience of subsequent addition, and 
 has ample leisure to look round him and see that 
 no trees are missed. The axeman marks all the 
 outer trees of the strip as they are measured. 
 On reaching the opposite edge of the forest, the 
 
TAKING STOCK. 69 
 
 party wheels round, and the barked trees of the 
 last strip become the outer boundary of the second 
 strip. This is work into which forest subordinates 
 may be readily drilled ; and if the forest area is 
 vast, half-a-dozen such parties of four men may 
 march abreast. 
 
 The diameters having been all taken, local 
 peculiarities will enable the officer to determine 
 whether a few typical trees may be selected 
 as a general average of height of the whole, 
 or whether these should be divided into classes 
 according to girth. As a general rule, when 
 the trees vary much in diameter, they should be 
 divided into classes 6 to 12 in., 12 to 18 in., 18 
 to 24 in., 24 to 36 in. and the height of half-a- 
 dozen trees of each class determined ; then the 
 total number of trees in each class, multiplied by 
 the height, area at base, and form figure, gives 
 the cubic contents. 
 
 As a preparatory step to stock-taking, the forest 
 should always be divided into well-defined and num- 
 bered blocks. 
 
 But although this operation is a perfectly simple 
 one, it would take a large and well-organised party 
 to get over 200 acres a day, devoting all their 
 time to field-work ; and as it is rarely possible to 
 give more than 150 working days in the year to it, 
 about 30,000 acres per annum may be set down as 
 
70 NOTES ON FORES TJ? Y. 
 
 the utmost that could be accomplished under one 
 European officer, devoting his whole time to it a 
 rate at which some of our Divisions would take 
 ten years to complete. We can hardly wait for 
 systematic working-plans until one party shall 
 have valued all our forests, and it would add very 
 much to costs to form such a party in every 
 province ; but sufficiently accurate data for a basis 
 of working-plans may be obtained in a simpler 
 manner by every executive officer, in addition to 
 his ordinary avocations, provided only that all the 
 larger forest blocks have been surveyed, and a map 
 to scale made of them ; and this survey work will 
 always be done better by men who have made 
 surveying their specialty than by forest officers, 
 especially in the Hills. 
 
 As a basis for this readier-found data, it may 
 be observed, that when the forest consists of one 
 class of tree only, or of trees similar in their 
 habits of growth, the diameters of the stems 
 (barring accidents from snowdrift or windfall, 
 and irregularities caused by the woodman's axe) 
 will bear a tolerably uniform ratio to the inter- 
 spaces, and that at all ages of growth. 
 
 With a pair of callipers, a tape measure, and a 
 notebook, two men could walk through a forest of 
 eight or ten square miles in a day, taking the 
 diameter of every tree en route, and measuring the 
 
TAKING STOCK. 
 
 interspaces ; and this, supplemented by a cross 
 section, CD, would afford a good general average 
 of the forest. Then adding all the diameters to- 
 gether in one column, and all interspaces together 
 
 in another, and taking the mean of each, we say, as 
 the square of the mean interspace is to the square 
 of the mean diameter x '7854, so is 43,560 (number 
 of square feet in an acre) to the ground area of 
 timber per acre ; and having the area of the forest, 
 and taking the height of a few trees of different 
 girths as averages, we are enabled to determine 
 approximately the cubic contents of the block, 
 and the proportion of trees of various girths. 
 
 It will be observed from the diagram that one 
 does not proceed forward in a straight line, but 
 
72 NOTES ON FORESTRY. 
 
 marches always upon the nearest tree in the general 
 direction. 
 
 After some days at this work, it will generally 
 be found that the proportion of tree diameter to 
 ground area varies so little in forests of the same 
 class, that the relation may be set down as a known 
 quantity say as I 2 to 16 2 or 20 2 or 24 2 ; and 
 having determined this relation, it is only necessary 
 to take- the diameters to determine the proportion 
 of trees in each class, and the height for the cubic 
 contents. Of course the form figure must be de- 
 termined for this, as for the more precise method. 
 
 In this manner every Divisional officer might in 
 two years get such a good general idea of the state 
 of his growing stock as would afford a fair basis 
 for a working-plan, and more precise stock-taking 
 might be left until the specially-appointed valuation 
 staff had leisure to take it up. 
 
CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 PERIOD OF FELLING. 
 
 TREES, like all other organisms, have their periods 
 of growth, maturity and decay, and necessarily 
 there is a period at which, varying in different 
 trees, the annual increment has attained its highest 
 point. Let us say that at sixty years an acre contains 
 2400 cubic feet timber, and increases 600 cubic 
 feet in the next ten years ; and 500 cubic feet in 
 the second ten years, and we say it has passed its 
 highest rate of increase at seventy to eighty years ; 
 but it has not yet passed its highest average. 
 
 2400 
 At 60 years we have -- = 40 cubic feet per annum. 
 
 600 
 
 At 80 > + -43-7 
 
 If it increase 800 cubic feet in the next twenty 
 years, then 
 
 MOO + 600 + 600 + 800 _ 43 ^ ^ per annum 
 
 And we now say it has attained its highest average 
 between eighty and a hundred years, and that that is 
 
74 NOTES ON FORESTRY. 
 
 the length of rotation at which it would be desirable 
 to cut it, unless large timber of the class is worth 
 more per cubic foot than small timber; and this 
 being ordinarily the case, the timber should be 
 allowed to stand until the annual falling off in 
 increment is barely compensated by the increased 
 money value. Moreover, between the sixtieth and 
 the hundred and twentieth year we may count on 
 being able to thin out to the extent of one-fifth the 
 quantity of stock at final clearing without detriment 
 to ultimate results. 
 
 German forest literature abounds in elaborate 
 tables of the growth at various stages of every 
 description of tree in the German forests, but these 
 would be useless as a basis for calculating the rate 
 of increment in our Indian forests, especially in the 
 Plains, where the growth during the first period of 
 twenty years is vastly in excess of anything known 
 in Europe. The corresponding statistics concern- 
 ing Indian trees must be studied by practical re- 
 search in the forest itself. 
 
 The following tables, giving the cubic contents 
 of an oak, a beech, and a Scotch fir forest at their 
 several stages, may be taken as indicating the 
 general ratio of increase of each class within itself ; 
 but being compiled by three different authorities, 
 they must not be taken as indicating the relative 
 growth of the three classes. 
 
PERIOD OF FELLING, 
 
 75 
 
 PFEIL SCOTCH FIR. 
 
 G-KEBE BEECH. 
 
 PRESSLER OAK. 
 
 Age. 
 
 Cubic 
 contents. 
 
 Annual 
 yield. 
 
 Age. 
 
 Cubic 
 contents. 
 
 Annual 
 yield. 
 
 Age. 
 
 Cubic 
 contents. 
 
 Annual 
 yield. 
 
 10 
 
 280 ft. 
 
 28 
 
 10 
 
 60ft. 
 
 6 
 
 10 
 
 200 ft. 
 
 20 
 
 20 
 
 640 
 
 32 
 
 20 
 
 500 
 
 25 
 
 20 
 
 700 
 
 35 
 
 30 
 
 1000 
 
 33 
 
 30 
 
 1300 
 
 43 
 
 30 
 
 1200 
 
 40 
 
 40 
 
 1500 
 
 37-5 
 
 40 
 
 2200 
 
 55 
 
 40 
 
 1700 
 
 42 
 
 50 
 
 2000 
 
 40 
 
 50 
 
 3100 
 
 62 
 
 50 
 
 2400 
 
 48 
 
 60 
 
 2400 
 
 40 
 
 60 
 
 4100 
 
 68 
 
 60 
 
 3100 
 
 51 
 
 70 
 
 2800 
 
 40 
 
 70 
 
 5000 
 
 71 
 
 70 
 
 3800 
 
 54 
 
 80 
 
 3100 
 
 38-7 
 
 80 
 
 5700 
 
 71 
 
 80 
 
 4700 
 
 58 
 
 90 
 
 3400 
 
 379 
 
 90 
 
 6400 
 
 71 
 
 90 
 
 5500 
 
 61 
 
 100 
 
 3700 
 
 37 
 
 100 
 
 7000 
 
 70 
 
 100 
 
 6400 
 
 64 
 
 110 
 
 3900 
 
 35-4 
 
 110 
 
 7500 
 
 68 
 
 110 
 
 7200 
 
 65 
 
 120 
 
 4100 
 
 34 
 
 120 
 
 7900 
 
 66 
 
 120 
 
 8100 
 
 67 
 
 
 
 
 
 130 
 
 8900 
 
 68 
 
 
 
 
 Total of thinnings 
 
 140 
 
 9700 
 
 69 
 
 
 
 
 over the whole 
 
 150 
 
 10400 
 
 69 
 
 
 
 
 Eeriod, 2900 cubic 
 
 160 
 
 11100 
 
 69 
 
 
 
 
 36t. 
 
 200 
 
 13400 
 
 67 
 
 
 
 
 
 Thinnings over the 
 
 
 
 
 
 whole period varying 
 from 25 per cent, to 
 
 
 
 
 
 50 per cent, of final 
 
 
 i 
 
 
 cuttings. 
 
 The cubic contents here given are per Austrian 
 jock, which is 6173 square yards, or a little more 
 than an acre and a quarter. 
 
 Now it is very evident from these tables that to 
 cut the oak before it reached a hundred years, or the 
 beech before it reached seventy years, would be to 
 lower the annual revenue of the forest below its capa- 
 bilities ; but on examining the pine, we find that 
 to cut it at fifty years would secure as high a yield 
 per annum as is attained at any subsequent stage, 
 and 25 per cent, more than is realised on a 120 
 
76 NOTES ON FORESTRY. 
 
 years' rotation, which latter is indeed but a trifle 
 higher than is to be got from a twenty years' rota- 
 tion. What, then, is the inducement to protract the 
 period ? 
 
 This is readily rendered intelligible. At fifty 
 years we may suppose there were 125 trees, 60 
 feet high and a foot diameter at breast-high, 
 giving 2000 cubic feet; at 120 years we may 
 estimate 75 trees, a foot and a half diameter at 
 breast-high and 90 feet high, giving 4000 cubic 
 feet. (This is taking *33 as the form figure.) 
 
 Now these 125 trees would taper to 6 inches diame- 
 ter at 30 feet, leaving 125 spars, 30 feet long and 6 
 inches diameter at base, unsaleable as timber, while 
 the 75 trees in the longer rotation would only 
 taper to 6 inches at 60 feet, leaving only 75 spars, 
 30 feet long and 6 inches at base, as unsaleable. 
 This would leave 325 cubic feet waste, or about 
 15 per cent, on the 2000 cubic feet, and 187 cubic 
 feet, or a little less than 5 per cent, on the 4000 
 cubic feet. 
 
 Moreover, between the 50th and 120fch years, 
 50 trees, equal approximately to 1500 cubic feet, 
 have been thinned out. 
 
 On the fifty years' rotation the saleable timber is 
 2000 325 = 1675, or 33 cubic feet per annum, 
 and on the 120 years' rotation, 4000 - 187 = 3813 + 
 1500 for thinnings, giving a total of 5313 or 44 
 
PERIOD OF FELLING. 77 
 
 cubic feet per annum, or 33 per cent, in favour of 
 the longer period in mere quantity, to say nothing 
 of the higher price realisable from 60-feet spars 
 in comparison with 30-feet spars. 
 
 From this it will be seen that an important 
 element in forest administration is a careful deter- 
 mination of the period of felling which will give 
 the highest pecuniary results. 
 
 But forest increment is a science of itself, and 
 to lay down instructions for determining the 
 relative growth of trees at various stages would 
 involve a certain amount of technicality foreign 
 to* the purpose of this little work. Pressler's 
 Forstzuwachs-Kunde, published by Waldemar Turk, 
 Dresden, might be advantageously consulted by 
 those having an acquaintance with German. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 COPPICE OR NIEDERWALD. 
 
 THE foregoing remarks refer especially to timber 1 
 forests, but all forests are not grown for timber. 
 If we were to convert all the waste lands in the 
 plains of India into forest in this generation, I 
 have no doubt that a century hence there would 
 be a vast improvement in the structure of native 
 houses and in their internal arrangements, and 
 that there would be men ready and willing to 
 extol the wisdom and foresight of their ancestors ; 
 but these appreciative murmurs, floating idly over 
 the graves of the deaf dead, would hardly com- 
 pensate them for the labours of which they never 
 reaped the reward. 
 
 In the last chapter I deprecated the reduction 
 of the capabilities of our forests by premature 
 felling and inattention to reproduction ; for a very 
 proper sentiment lies at the bottom of the motive 
 which prompts us to leave those who come im- 
 mediately after us no occasion to tax us with 
 
COPPICE OR NIEDER WALD. 79 
 
 spoiling a property in which we had only a life- 
 interest, and which was ours only in trust for 
 future generations. But to tax the present 
 generation for benefits to be reaped a century 
 hence is to sacrifice justice to the present for 
 generosity to the future. Hence I would not 
 advocate the formation of new timber forests on 
 a large scale, except in so far as this can be done 
 by a fair tax on a liberal present forest revenue. 
 Even if we were entirely to identify the present 
 with the future, my rough calculations lead me to 
 assume that, to grow timber taking a hundred 
 years to reach maturity, the forest would be so 
 heavily weighted by compound interest accumulat- 
 ing on the first outlay, that it would be nearly two 
 hundred years before it would show a balance- 
 sheet superior to that of a coppice wood in a 
 locality where there was a good demand for fuel 
 and bullahs. 
 
 In the face of a newly-developed demand for 
 timber in a country in which forests did not exist, 
 it would be a matter of very questionable prudence 
 to commence growing timber on a large scale, at 
 least if anything approaching a hundred years was 
 required for it to come to maturity ; for, under 
 English rule, material progress would hardly wait 
 with folded hands while the timber was growing, 
 but would rather turn to some substitute, with 
 
8O NO TES ON FORES TR Y. 
 
 which the timber when mature might be unable to 
 compete. 
 
 But to grow forests to meet an increased de- 
 mand for fuel is another matter. On the plains 
 of India first-class wood-fuel can be produced in 
 ten j r ears; and although, even while this is growing, 
 the railways, which first provoked the demand, may 
 be driven to resort to imported coal, there is every 
 probability of wood-fuel again successfully com- 
 peting with it ; and even if it fail, the rapid ex- 
 tension of agriculture under a settled government 
 is fast reducing the old area of fuel wastes, leading 
 to a rapidly-increased demand for fuel and poles 
 for domestic purposes. By raising fuel-plantations 
 systematically and economically, we can set free 
 jungle-lands for agriculture, while increasing the 
 fuel production. 
 
 The question of the growth and administration 
 of fuel-plantations is thus to some extent a matter 
 sui generis, and the considerations which guide us 
 in their administration somewhat different from 
 those which guide us in the administration of 
 forest proper. 
 
 The first point is the selection of trees which 
 coppice freely. Among Northern Indian trees, 
 the sissoo, mulberry, and large ber (Zizyphus 
 jujuba) take first rank : the sal coppices as freely, 
 and is an excellent fuel wood. These should be 
 
COPPICE OR NIEDERWALD. 8 1 
 
 sown in lines at 7 to 10 feet apart, or, if planted, 
 may be put in at 5 to 6 feet apart. 
 
 The period of felling is not, as in timber forests, 
 determined by the period of highest increment, 
 but by the period at which the stumps send out 
 the most vigorous shoots, which is generally when 
 they are from 4 to 9 inches diameter. 
 
 The ber will coppice as vigorously from larger 
 stumps, but the shoots have not as good a hold on 
 the stump ; the stump is more liable to decay ; the 
 fuel requires to be split ; and after the first clear- 
 ing, the shoots will probably attain their highest 
 capacity for increment at 6 to 8 inches diameter. 
 
 The fellings should never be performed with 
 the saw, as shoots from sawn stamps are liable to 
 windfall ; nor should the top of the stump be left 
 cup-shaped, or water will lodge on it, and cause 
 early decay. The stems should 
 be cut nearly through from one 
 side, a small notch only being 
 made at the back to prevent 
 splitting. 
 
 Coppice stems grow much 
 quicker than seedling stems in 
 their first stages, but retardation of growth sets 
 in sooner. The following table gives the average 
 proportion of oak and beech seedling and coppice 
 stems for sixty years, by which it will be seen that 
 
82 
 
 NOTES ON FORESTRY. 
 
 the coppice takes the lead for thirty years, when 
 it rapidly drops behind. 
 
 YEARS. 
 
 SEEDLING. 
 
 COPPICE. 
 
 10 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 20 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 30 
 
 k 
 
 9 
 
 40 
 
 9* 
 
 11 
 
 50 
 
 12| 
 
 12 
 
 60 
 
 16} 
 
 13 
 
 The period of coppice-rotation in Germany is 
 usually thirty years, but the above-mentioned In- 
 dian trees will give better results in ten years than 
 beech or oak in thirty. 
 
 Coppice should be grown tolerably thick, and 
 blanks caused by decayed stumps immediately 
 re-stocked ; the stems will thus grow tall and 
 straight, and both yield more fuel, and give a 
 better proportion of poles, than if the stocks were 
 more scattered. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 FORESTS OF TREES OF VARIOUS AGES 
 (MITTELWALD). 
 
 THE German Mittelmald, or mixed forest of timber 
 and coppice, will be best understood by regarding 
 it as an old coppice in which a few stems per acre 
 have been spared at every cutting, until, in process 
 of time, it contains trees of all ages, from timber to 
 coppice shoots and seedlings ; and at every coppice 
 clearing a few selected stems being left, a corre- 
 sponding number of older trees are taken out. 
 
 The theory of this system is a very pretty one. 
 It rests upon the assumption that a dozen or 
 twenty trees to the acre, left at the first cutting, 
 would neither perceptibly affect the yield of 
 coppice, nor would they shade the ground so as 
 appreciably to affect the yield at the second cut- 
 ting, while it is understood that the trees make 
 more wood in the later than in the first stages, 
 and are also growing to a better class of wood. 
 Practically the system is not so satisfactory. 
 
84 NOTES ON FORESTRY. 
 
 The reserved stems, on being left standing alone, 
 immediately send out strong lateral branches; 
 they never rise to the height desirable in timber 
 trees ; and at any subsequent period of growth 
 they are found occupying more ground space than 
 would be occupied by a tree of equal cubic con- 
 tents in a timber forest. After a few rotations 
 there is a very marked depreciation in yield of 
 coppice wood, while the forest, regarded as a 
 timber forest, is in a hopelessly unsatisfactory 
 condition. 
 
 I visited many Mittelroald forests in Germany, 
 and found them very instructive as indicating 
 what to avoid; but they were mostly private forests, 
 and the forest officers with whom I visited them 
 generally agreed with me that their unsatisfactory 
 state was mainly due to leaving more stems at 
 every felling than was consistent with the ideal 
 theory of a mixed forest. 
 
 The cubic contents of each felling were generally 
 on a par with the yield of pure coppice, and the 
 money value somewhat higher ; and although the 
 system has been almost entirely discarded in State 
 forests, I am not quite sure that it might not be 
 advantageously introduced into our coppice planta- 
 tions, provided we keep in view the maintenance 
 of the coppice yield, and do not leave too many 
 stems for timber. 
 
FORESTS OF TREES OF VARIOUS AGES. 85 
 
 To form a Mittelwald, one proceeds in precisely 
 the same way as for coppice up to the first felling, 
 when, instead of clearing all off, twenty selected 
 stems to the acre should be left as nearly as 
 possible at uniform distances of 45 to 50 feet 
 apart. No more stems should be left at the 
 second period, as these would be only coppice 
 shoots, which would never grow to timber. At 
 the third period there would be seedlings from 
 the first reserve, and of these, six per acre might 
 be reserved, a corresponding number of the first 
 reserve being cut out to make room for them, 
 and the process repeated at every felling, the six 
 stems taken out being not trees of uniform age, 
 but one or two of the reserves of each period. 
 
 Even with this moderate number of reserved 
 stems there would soon be an appreciable diminu- 
 tion in the yield of fuel, but I believe the timber 
 yield would more than compensate for it. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 FELLING BY SELECTION (PLANTERBETRIEB). 
 
 THIS is the primitive system of working forests 
 in all countries. In its ruder form, the forester 
 proceeds without method, going into the forest and 
 selecting such timber as suits him, irrespective of 
 the relation of its cubic contents to the forest incre- 
 ment. Reduced to system, it implies a condition of 
 the forest in which every part is covered with trees 
 of each period of growth in just proportion, so that 
 with say a rotation of a hundred years, if all the 
 trees of full age be taken out in any one year, 
 there will be a corresponding number which will 
 reach maturity the following year. Among the 
 drawbacks of this system, a very important one 
 is the large area over which operations range, and 
 the consequent difficulty of supervision. This is to 
 some extent met by dividing the forest into twenty 
 equal blocks, and cutting the required number of 
 trees in each block annually. The introduction 
 of this modification upsets the regularity of yield 
 
FELLING BY SELECTION. 8/ 
 
 to some extent. In the first year, we can only get 
 the just number of trees by felling all from eighty 
 to a hundred years ; in the second year, the trees 
 are from eighty-one to a hundred and one years, and 
 so on to the twentieth year, when the last block 
 gives the required number of trees at from a hun- 
 dred to a hundred and twenty years ; and in all 
 subsequent rotations this irregularity will be per- 
 petuated. And even on this modified system the 
 area under treatment annually is much greater 
 than it would be when felling was conducted on 
 rotation of area. 
 
 In gregarious forests this system of working 
 has all the disadvantages of Mittelwald forests, 
 and perhaps in an aggravated measure ; for al- 
 though in the Mittelwald the trees are generally 
 found so near together that the coppice has no 
 chance in the struggle, the trees themselves do not 
 generally interfere with each other ; while in the 
 Planterwald, the whole forest being stocked with 
 trees in various stages of growth, all mixed pro- 
 miscuously, every growing tree is oppressed by a 
 stronger neighbour, and forming lateral branches 
 on its free side, overpowers and checks the develop- 
 ment of its next younger neighbour. On the other 
 hand, it is claimed for this system that, in the final 
 period, it affords light-loving trees that free space 
 which they cannot get in close forests ; that in 
 
88 NOTES ON FORESTRY. 
 
 practice it is possible to modify the system by 
 leaving the trees of each stage of growth in larger 
 or smaller clumps, instead of singly, and that, when 
 it is desired, scattered trees may be left to attain 
 the largest possible dimensions with little prejudice 
 to the young crop below. 
 
 The annual outcome, cceteris paribus, is said to 
 be barely two-thirds of the outcome from timber 
 forests worked by rotation of area ; and, with the 
 progress of scientific forestry in Germany within 
 the last century, the method has been to a great ex- 
 tent abandoned in State forests, but it still prevails 
 in private forests, the proprietors or managers of 
 which attach little weight to the objections against 
 their method, and smile complacently upon the new 
 system. 
 
 This system of felling by selection has been 
 spoken of very favourably for India, and there can be 
 little doubt that it is the method best adapted to 
 lofty mountain ranges, the steep slopes of which, if 
 laid bare area by area, would be exposed to erosion 
 by avalanches, landslips, &c. In mixed forests, too, 
 worked mainly for one valuable class of timber, 
 which is not the preponderating class in the forest, 
 the system of felling by selection could not gener- 
 ally be departed from without felling a great deal of 
 immature timber in course of transition ; but even 
 here, if the conditions were such that it were pos- 
 
FELLING BY SELECTION. 89 
 
 
 
 sible to subdivide the Division into blocks, that 
 the bulk of the teak or other valuable timber in 
 each block should be of approximately uniform 
 age, the disadvantages of perpetuating the system 
 of felling by selection should not be lost sight of. 
 First, it spreads operations over immense areas, a 
 matter of far greater importance in our immense 
 Indian divisions than in a German forest charge, 
 which rarely exceeds five thousand acres. Secondly, 
 although favourable to the growth of large timber, 
 it is not favourable to the growth of tall timber. 
 Thirdly, mature trees cannot be felled without 
 damage to younger trees. Further, the collection of 
 scattered logs over the whole forest area, and work- 
 ing them out singly, is not only expensive and 
 difficult, but causes incalculable damage to the 
 young seedlings ; and, finally, there is a difficulty 
 in so apportioning the fellings to the increment, 
 as to maintain permanently the status quo of the 
 forest; and should the working-plan be based on 
 estimates above the mark, its provisions cannot be 
 carried out save at the cost of rapid, although at 
 first imperceptible, degeneration both of standing 
 crop and rate of increment. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 FELLING BY ROTATION OF AREA. 
 
 THIS is the G-erman forester's attained ideal of 
 methodical treatment, and is especially suited to 
 forests of gregarious trees. The forest is divided 
 into blocks as many in number as there are years 
 in the rotation. These blocks are uniform in size, 
 or vary in area with the capabilities of the soil, so 
 as to equalise the yield. Large forests are gener- 
 ally cut up into primary divisions, rarely exceeding 
 five thousand acres, and each of these primary 
 divisions subdivided into annual blocks. 
 
 These divisions are each in charge of a compe- 
 tent officer ; and if it were determined to work up 
 any of our forests to this regular system of rotation, 
 it would be a matter for consideration at the outset 
 whether the number of primary divisions should be 
 based on the numerical force of the existing staff, or 
 upon a probable increase to their numbers. If our 
 forest divisions were now divided into subcharges 
 of fifty thousand or a hundred thousand acres 
 each, and each of these subdivisions divided into 
 
FELLING BY ROTATION OF AREA. gi 
 
 a series of annual blocks, it would hardly be pos- 
 sible at any future time to effect a further subdivi- 
 sion, especially if the blocks were situated in the 
 order of their numbers ; but the difficulty would be 
 trifling if there were a fortuitous irregularity in 
 the position of the blocks with relation to their 
 numbers, which would render it possible to divide 
 the division into two equal parts, in each of 
 which there would be a corresponding number of 
 blocks of all ages ; but if the blocks follow each 
 other in the order in which they come to the axe, 
 we might not be able to cut the division into two 
 parts without getting all timber above middle age 
 in the one part, and all below middle age in the 
 other. This objection does not hold in a forest 
 worked on the system of felling by selection; such 
 a forest, however subdivided, would still have trees 
 of all ages in each subdivision. 
 
 Recurring to the system of felling by rotation of 
 area, if the period of rotation were fixed at a hun- 
 dred years, each forest or primary division would 
 be divided into a hundred blocks, and if planting 
 were resorted to for reproduction, one block would 
 be felled every year ; and necessarily, after the 
 first rotation, each block would come to the axe 
 at an uniform age of a hundred years ; and if in 
 the course of the rotation one or more blocks were 
 laid low, or so damaged as materially to affect the 
 
Q2 NO TES ON FORES TR Y. 
 
 promise of the outcome, it is frequently advisable 
 to complete the clearing of such block or blocks, 
 and provide for re-stocking it at once. Its place 
 in the next rotation would probably have to be 
 altered, and the loss in outcome be spread over 
 the rest of the rotation by a rateable reduction of 
 felling in each block. 
 
 If natural reproduction is relied on, we cannot 
 then effect a clean sweep of one block per annum, 
 but must begin by thinning out the older blocks 
 in that gradual manner prescribed in the chapter 
 on natural reproduction ; but after we have got as 
 many years into the rotation as are allowed from 
 the first thinning to foster germination to the 
 final clearing, we have always one block to be 
 finally cleared annually one block in which we 
 make the first thinning, and another or others in 
 which we make the second and intermediate thin- 
 nings, to admit light and foster the growth of the 
 young crop. 
 
 This necessitates felling operations being spread 
 over a large area ; and, as a general rule, when 
 felling by rotation of area is the system, artificial 
 planting is resorted to for reproduction. 
 
 On this system trees have only to struggle with 
 those of their own age; they lead each other up 
 tall and straight ; periodical thinnings afford the 
 necessary space for lateral development; and the 
 
FELLING BY ROTA TION OF AREA. 93 
 
 result is an out-turn equal to the full capabilities 
 of the soil. Moreover, the operations of plant- 
 ing, thinning, and felling are all carried on in 
 well-defined areas only, and younger trees are not 
 damaged by the older being felled on and worked 
 out over them. This renders supervision easy and 
 effective, and, guided by the working-plan, the con- 
 trolling officer can see at a glance whether the 
 work returns of the year are in accordance with its 
 provisions. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 TIMBER FOREST WITH COPPICE. 
 
 THIS is a further modification of the last system, 
 resorted to when it is desired to secure heavier 
 timber than is to be obtained from close forest, 
 by which term is understood a forest in which the 
 branches meet overhead. The forest having been 
 subjected to the ordinary thinning until the trees 
 have attained nearly their full height, is then sub- 
 jected to a sharp thinning to the extent of 50 or 
 even 75 per cent. The remaining trees, bathing in 
 the full sunlight, and no longer crowding each 
 other, soon develop a broad spreading crown, 
 with proportionate increase in girth of trunk. 
 And provision having previously been made to 
 guard against the trees being drawn up too rapidly 
 for their strength, they will now develop that 
 ample girth which they would have attained had 
 they grown from the first in free space, with the 
 additional advantage of combining height and 
 straightness with great girth. 
 
TIMBER FOREST WITH COPPICE. 95 
 
 Oaks thus grown for large timber are sometimes 
 allowed to stand for another hundred years after 
 the last thinning; and to shade and utilise the 
 vacant ground, and preserve to the soil all its 
 properties as forest soil, the whole area is planted 
 with an under-crop, usually treated as coppice ; or 
 the coppice^ shoots of the felled trees are allowed 
 to occupy the ground, and are cut over periodically 
 for their bark; but when the trees are intended 
 to stand for another hundred years or more, the 
 soil is frequently covered with beech or pine, which 
 are grown for timber, and on their reaching matu- 
 rity, all are felled together. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 TRANSITION FROM LOWER TO HIGHER FOREST 
 CONDITIONS. 
 
 IT is perhaps somewhat arbitrary to class a sys- 
 tematically worked coppice as a low condition of 
 forest, especially when, as sometimes happens, it 
 is the condition best suited to local requirements; 
 but, nevertheless, as there is a gradually increas- 
 ing scale of outcome from the coppice to the high 
 timber forest, the classification of the various 
 conditions into higher and lower appears legiti- 
 mate. 
 
 As we have already seen, the transition from a 
 young coppice to a forest of trees of mixed ages 
 is easy and natural ; we require only to spare a 
 few seedlings at each felling, until we have the 
 required proportion of high timber, when we can 
 supplement the yield of each coppice clearance by 
 felling with it a few older stems of various ages, 
 and leaving a corresponding number of seedlings 
 to take their place. 
 
 The transition from the forest of trees of various 
 
TRANSITION, ETC. 97 
 
 ages to a timber forest worked by selection is 
 more a change of system than of condition. For 
 both systems we require a forest stocked with 
 trees of all ages, from the seedling to the mature 
 tree ; but while on the one system we cut out 
 some trees of all ages with every coppice rotation, 
 on the other, we cut out annually those trees only 
 which arrive at maturity. But to work a forest 
 methodically, and with uniformity of annual yield, 
 on the system of selection, it is important to 
 determine in how far the areas of trees of each 
 stage of growth are in just relation throughout ; 
 and in the case of great irregularity or preponder- 
 ance of area of trees of any one stage, fellings 
 should be arranged with an -eye to their adjust- 
 ment. The trees should be classed into periods of 
 growth, and supposing we fix these periods at 
 say twenty years, and the rotation at a hundred 
 years, then one-fifth of the area should be occu- 
 pied with trees of each period. With trees of all 
 ages growing promiscuously together, it would be 
 difficult to estimate the relative area of each by 
 ground measurement, but by determining how 
 many trees of each period will flourish on an acre, 
 we know that in the present case we require one- 
 fifth of the determined number of each period. 
 Thus, supposing a forest of such trees as would 
 stand at fifty to the acre in the fifth period 
 
 G 
 
98 NO TES ON FORES TR Y. 
 
 (80-100 years), we should probably find that the 
 proportion in which they would stand to the acre 
 at all periods would be somewhat as follows : 
 
 At 1st period, 1- 20 years, 800 
 2d 20- 40 400 
 3d 40- 60 200 
 4th 60- 80 iOO 
 5th 80-100 50 
 
 And in a forest worked by selection on a hundred 
 years' rotation, we should require an average of 
 approximately one-fifth of these numbers for each 
 period to the acre. 
 
 If there are no blocks of trees of uniform ages 
 at hand to afford data for fixing the number 
 which an acre will carry, we arrive at it easily by 
 measuring the spread of the branches of a typical 
 tree of each period, and dividing the square of the 
 spread in feet into 43,560, the number of square 
 feet in an acre. For instance, if the spread of the 
 branches were 30 feet, then 43,560 -r- 30 2 = 48, the. 
 number of trees of that spread which would stand 
 on the acre without undue crowding. 
 
 The average increment of such a forest is approxi- 
 mately ascertainable, and the timber to be felled 
 annually should be limited to such annual incre- 
 ment ; for if trees of the older periods are in excess, 
 and we keep cutting out all the mature timber, we 
 
TRANSITION, ETC. 99 
 
 shall by and by find it impossible to maintain the 
 outcome. 
 
 The transition from any of the afore-named con- 
 ditions to such a condition as will enable us to 
 work the forest by rotation of area, requires much 
 more thought ; the possible variation of conditions 
 extends over a wide range, and every such variation 
 requires a more or less special treatment. The 
 general idea to be kept in mind is that of such a 
 gradual transition as will admit of the end being 
 attained by the sacrifice of as little present revenue 
 as needs be ; but improvement of system is a future 
 gain, which must be paid for with a present price. 
 
 TRANSITION FROM COPPICE. 
 
 In the chapter on coppice it was seen that, dur- 
 ing the first thirty years of its growth in Europe, 
 the yield is greater than from seedling stems, but 
 that after that period the latter take the lead, 
 increasing rapidly in annual production, while in 
 the coppice there is a rapid falling off, the incre- 
 ment becoming almost imperceptible at sixty to 
 seventy years. But this is not necessarily true of 
 India ; and although we want data for determining 
 the comparative rates of growth of seedling and 
 coppice stems at all ages, there is ample data to 
 support the conclusion that both sal and teak 
 coppice will grow into good-sized timber ; but, 
 
I OO NO TES ON FORES TR Y. 
 
 unless the coppice has been cut off close to the 
 ground, there is so commonly an element of decay 
 developing itself at the point at which the new 
 shoot encloses the old stem, that we could hardly 
 count with confidence on raising really first-class 
 timber by laying up coppice. But if it were deter- 
 mined to convert a coppice into timber forest in a 
 Division in which there was no officer practically 
 familiar with planting, the forest might be divided 
 into as many blocks as there are years in the 
 contemplated rotation, and one of these blocks be 
 laid up annually, the remainder being worked for 
 coppice as before. There would be of course an 
 ever-increasing reduction in yield for the first few 
 years, but this would subsequently be to a great 
 extent compensated for by the yield of thinnings 
 from the reserved blocks, and at the end of the 
 period the forest would be cut over as timber 
 forest. 
 
 This of course assumes that the coppice is a 
 tall-growing wood, valuable as timber; but if 
 this is not the case, or it is wished to introduce a 
 better class of timber, planting must be resorted 
 to. After the annual clearance, the block intended 
 to be laid up should be planted with strong plants 
 from 3 to 6 feet high, and at distances of 15 
 to 20 feet apart. The coppice may be allowed 
 to grow with them, and be cut over as before, 
 
TRANSITION, ETC. IOI 
 
 as long as it is worth cutting, care being taken 
 during the first few years to cut out any shoots 
 which threaten to domineer over or crowd the 
 young trees. 
 
 In substitution of this method, we may plant the 
 trees more closely, and keep down the coppice 
 shoots until the young trees shall have domineered 
 over them ; and this would be the better course 
 if the coppice is not straight-growing ; or, better 
 still, clear the ground entirely, if the stumps 
 will pay cost of removal ; but when there is no 
 great demand for fuel, it will be cheaper to keep 
 down the shoots. 
 
 The possibility of stocking each block in the 
 order of its geographical position will depend 
 upon the arrangement of the blocks in the coppice 
 rotation ; but if much stress is laid on it, it can 
 be provided for at the trifling sacrifice of clear- 
 ing the required block annually, irrespectively of 
 whether it is mature coppice or not. 
 
 TRANSITION FROM FORESTS OF MIXED COPPICE AND 
 TIMBER. 
 
 This is hardly a known condition in Indian 
 forests. The method of its conversion into timber 
 forest would be by the laying up of one block 
 annually as with coppice, felling all the older trees 
 from three feet girth upwards, fostering the young 
 
IO2 KOTES ON FORESTRY. 
 
 seedlings by cutting out such, coppice shoots as 
 crowd them, and planting the bare spots. The 
 block being now laid up, subsequent thinnings 
 would be generally confined to coppice stems until 
 these were all removed. 
 
 TRANSITION FROM THE SYSTEM OF FELLING BY SELEC- 
 TION (PLANTERBETRIEB) TO THAT OF FELLING BY 
 
 ROTATION OF AREA. 
 
 In prescribing rules for such a conversion of 
 system, the European forest officer would natu- 
 rally proceed on the assumption that the forest 
 in which the change of method was to be effected 
 bore some approach to the ideal condition of a 
 just proportion of timber at maturity, and a just 
 proportion of timber at every stage of growth. 
 In dealing with such an ideal forest, the system 
 of rotation of area might be adhered to during a 
 great part of the first rotation. The trees felled 
 would not be of uniform age, and the admissibility 
 of the system would depend to some extent upon 
 the prudence of felling more or less immature 
 timber. 
 
 There are great possibilities of variety in the 
 details of treatment with a view to such a tran- 
 sition, but a single instance will be sufficient to 
 indicate the general principle. 
 
 Let us suppose a forest in which, if the trees 
 
TRANSITION, ETC. 1 03 
 
 were of uniform age, they would at maturity say 
 at a hundred years stand at fifty to the acre, but 
 which, having hitherto been worked on the system 
 of felling by selection, is now stocked with toler- 
 able uniformity in something like the following 
 proportion per acre throughout : 
 
 Trees from 80-100 years, 10 
 
 60- 80 20 
 
 ., 40- 60 40 
 
 20-40 80 
 
 20 160 
 
 Now, if we divide the forest into say five blocks, 
 ABODE, and begin by laying up E for twenty years, 
 treating ABCD as before, we sacrifice one-fifth of 
 our income for that period (supposing, of course, 
 that the forest had been hitherto worked up to 
 its full capabilities). At its conclusion, E, having 
 been properly thinned of all its small stuff during 
 the period, will have been reduced to sixty or 
 eighty trees per acre, varying from sixty to 120 
 years old. Now lay BCD up, and occupying the 
 first five of the second twenty years in cutting out 
 the large timber from A, we next turn to E, cut 
 out the oldest trees in the next five years, the then 
 oldest in the following five, and clear off in the last 
 five of the period. 
 
 In this manner we avoid felling any timber under 
 seventy-five years old ; and getting a proportion at 
 120 years, the yield of this second period of twenty 
 
I O4 NO TES ON FORES TJ? Y. 
 
 years will probably be fully as high as in any 
 similar period before conversion. 
 
 In the third period, the first five years would 
 be occupied in selecting timber from A, which 
 would then be laid up, and the next fifteen in 
 clearing off D (taking the oldest trees first), with 
 similar results to the previous twenty years. 
 
 We have now behind us D, covered with seed- 
 lings under twenty years, E with trees from 
 twenty to forty years, and before us CBA, the two 
 former of which carry timber from sixty to 120 
 years, and the latter from seedlings to eighty 
 years ; and taking C in hand, and cutting out the 
 oldest trees first, we are able to clear the last at 
 from seventy-five to eighty years old. 
 
 B being similarly treated in the next twenty 
 years, the trees would be cut out at from ninety- 
 five to 140 years old. 
 
 Finally, A, being similarly treated, would give 
 trees from seventy-five to 120 years. 
 
 At the expiration of this period, we should 
 have five blocks, in each of which there is a grada- 
 tion of twenty years in age ; but to complete the 
 transition we want a hundred blocks in which the 
 gradation is by annual steps ; and we may not 
 be able to divide any of these five blocks into 
 twentieth parts, and secure anything like a yearly 
 gradation of age in the blocks. 
 
TRANSITION, ETC. IO5 
 
 We have now the choice of spreading twenty years 
 over each block, and felling the oldest trees first, 
 which would be the introduction of a modified 
 system of felling by selection in restricted areas, 
 or of dividing each block into twentieths, and 
 felling by rotation of area ; and throughout the 
 whole second rotation, instead of cutting at the 
 uniform age of 100 years, we should have to cut 
 trees varying from eighty to 120 years. 
 
 It will be gathered from this that the change 
 of system is not a matter to be effected in a day, 
 and should not lightly be resorted to at a great 
 sacrifice of present revenue, even where the ulti- 
 mate benefit is beyond question. 
 
 Throughout this example it has been assumed 
 that reproduction is ensured either by planting or 
 by thinning out gradually the timber to be felled, 
 so as to foster natural reproduction, and that the 
 blocks laid up were thinned where necessary, and 
 principally by removal of trees under forty years 
 old only. 
 
 But Indian forests, although they may have 
 hitherto been worked on the system of felling by 
 selection, will rarely be found in the state above 
 pictured. Instead of having trees of all ages in 
 due proportion springing side by side from an 
 uniform undergrowth of seedlings, we find more 
 generally that they consist of irregular blocks, in 
 
io6 
 
 NOTES ON FORESTRY. 
 
 each of which, if the timber be not exactly of 
 uniform age throughout, trees of approximately 
 uniform age will nevertheless preponderate. 
 
 Here the groundwork of the operation would 
 be the division into blocks, and the classification 
 of the areas of trees of the preponderating age 
 of each block above or below their true place 
 in the rotation ; and the amount of departure from 
 a just proportion of trees of all ages would be 
 rectified in the course of the first rotation by fell- 
 ing a greater or less area above or below the age 
 fixed as the length of the rotation. 
 
 Let us suppose, for example, that stock has been 
 taken of a forest of 120,000 acres in extent, the 
 proper period of rotation being fixed as 120 
 years, and that the returns per area, based on 
 the preponderating trees of each block, are as 
 follows : 
 
 IST PERIOD. 
 1-20 yrs. 
 
 2D PERIOD. 
 20-40 yrs. 
 
 3D PERIOD. 
 40-60 yrs. 
 
 4THPERIOD. 
 
 60-80 yrs. 
 
 5TH PERIOD. 
 80-100 yrs. 
 
 GTH PERIOD. 
 100-120 yrs. 
 
 Area in 
 acres. 
 
 Area in 
 acres. 
 
 Area in 
 acres. 
 
 Area in 
 acres. 
 
 Area in 
 acres. 
 
 Area in 
 acres. 
 
 10,000 
 
 50,000 
 
 35,000 
 
 15,000 
 
 10,000 
 
 
 And we want 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 20,000 
 
 20,000 
 
 20,000 
 
 20,000 
 
 20,000 20,000 
 
 Now, in the first period, having only 10,000 
 acres, we supplement it with 10,000 of the second 
 period, in which we shall then have 40,000, one 
 
TRANSITION, ETC. 
 
 107 
 
 half of which is allowed to stand as second period, 
 and the other half carried to the third period. 
 Of the 35,000 acres in the third period, we carry 
 20,000 acres to the fourth period ; and the remain- 
 ing 15,000 acres, with 5000 acres of the fourth 
 period, being carried to the fifth period, we have 
 left 10,000 acres of the fourth period and 10,000 
 acres of the fifth period to carry to the sixth 
 period. 
 
 Having thus arranged the area in classes, it is 
 evident that we cannot commence cutting at once 
 without cutting immature timber for the next 
 eighty years, by which course we should lower 
 the money value of the increment, which is 
 ordinarily highest in the last twenty years of the 
 rotation ; and unless immature timber were in fair 
 demand, yielding a good profit, it would be desir- 
 able to give such a forest rest for a time. 
 
 Let us see now what would be the result of 
 laying it up for twenty years 
 
 
 80-100 yrs. 
 
 100-120 yrs. 
 
 120-140 yrs. 140-160 yrs. 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 In the 1st period we 
 
 Acres. 
 
 Acres. 
 
 Acres. 
 
 Acres. 
 
 should then have * 
 
 10,000 
 
 10,000 
 
 
 
 , 2d , 
 
 15,000 
 
 5,000 
 
 
 
 , 3d , 
 
 
 20,000 
 
 
 
 , 4th , 
 
 
 20,000 
 
 
 
 , 5th , 
 
 
 
 20,000 
 
 
 
 , 6th , 
 
 
 ... 
 
 10,000 
 
 10,000 
 
 * By cutting out the oldest first, we should guard against cutting 
 any under a hundred years old. 
 
108 NOTES ON FORESTRY. 
 
 And by this arrangement we should cut only the 
 first 25,000 acres below maturity, and the last 
 40,000 acres above the recognised period of ma- 
 turity, which may or may not be a disadvantage, 
 according to the correctness of the data on which 
 the period of rotation has been fixed. 
 
 If the preponderance of area had been of trees 
 of the fourth and fifth periods, instead of the 
 second and third periods, and the desirability of 
 preserving each block to maturity fully recognised, 
 the whole area carrying timber saleable at a profit 
 might be sharply thinned through during the 
 twenty years of rest, without prejudice to the 
 ultimate crop, especially with deciduous trees, but 
 only in the event of the forest being fully stocked ; 
 for, if fellings had already been so excessive, 
 that, supplemented by fires which destroyed their 
 seedlings, grass and rank undergrowth had got 
 possession of the forest floor, our care should be 
 to leave every tree until the branches had again 
 closed, that the undergrowth might be destroyed, 
 and the forest floor again fitted for tree reproduc- 
 tion. No prejudicial undergrowth can exist in a 
 close forest. 
 
 It need hardly be pointed out that, as the trees 
 in each block vary twenty years in age, it will 
 generally be desirable to cut out the oldest first, 
 by which means all are felled at an uniform age ; 
 
TRANSITION, ETC. 1 09 
 
 but if it is intended to work by rotation of annual 
 blocks with artificial reproduction, the blocks may 
 be each divided into twentieths, classed according 
 to the age of the preponderating trees of each 
 subdivision, and felled as they are classed; but 
 if it were intended to trust to natural reproduction, 
 the division into annual blocks would scarcely 
 result in concentrating operations more than the 
 modified system of Pldnterbetrieb indicated in the 
 last example that is, a Pldnterbetrieb in which 
 the trees of each block vary only twenty years in 
 age. The choice between these rival systems 
 would depend generally on the rate of growth of 
 the young crop. With timber like sissoo, the 
 seedlings of which in favourable conditions reach 
 a height of from two to five feet the first year, the 
 rotation of area would have the preference, as the 
 block opened for light the first year might be 
 cleared off the second, and operations be always 
 concentrated on two blocks ; but with slower grow- 
 ing seedlings, in which it is necessary to thin out 
 slowly, and at intervals of three or four years, 
 operations would be spread over nearly the same 
 area on the one system as on the other. Taking 
 block by block, it is perhaps easier to count stock 
 and maintain uniformity of yield. Taking the 
 whole area en masse admits of the selection of the 
 
1 10 NOTES ON FORESTRY. 
 
 oldest trees first, and consequently the maintenance 
 of the highest yield, estimated by money value. 
 
 In felling by blocks, it is a matter of little 
 consequence whether they come to the axe in the 
 order of their geographical position or not, but it 
 is of more consequence so to arrange them, and 
 especially in hill country, that the young growth 
 shall always be sheltered from the prevailing 
 storm-winds by older forest. 
 
 But however systematically fellings may be 
 proportioned to the annual increment at the 
 outset, unless proper provision be made for 
 perfect reproduction, the forests are being anni- 
 hilated. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 WORKING-PLANS. 
 
 A WORKING-PLAN is nothing more than a proposed 
 scheme of operations; but the term is generally 
 used to signify that there is some system in the 
 scheme ; that it is based on more or less precisely 
 ascertained data of the amount of standing stock 
 of each period, rate of growth at each stage, yield 
 of thinnings, with the order in which the several 
 blocks require thinning ; order of final clearing, 
 with the financial results of these operations, and 
 on a reliable method of reproduction, the costs of 
 which have been approximately determined; and 
 that it aims at utilising the increment, and per- 
 petuating the capabilities of the forest, or of 
 improving them if it has suffered from past mis- 
 management. 
 
 On the ordinary Planter betrieb, the principal data 
 are restricted to the average annual increment which 
 is cut out yearly as mature timber, and the method 
 of working out the timber. 
 
 If a forest officer proposes to fell as much 
 
112 NO TES ON FORES TR Y. 
 
 timber as he can find a market for, and leave 
 reproduction to take care of itself, this is his 
 working-plan, but it is % hardly a commendable one. 
 He may realise a better revenue for many years 
 than his more experienced brother officer, but 
 there is danger lest it should be at the cost of the 
 permanent deterioration of his forest. 
 
 Apart from the importance of forests in the 
 general economy of nature, the true aim of forest 
 administration is the realisation of the highest 
 possible present revenue, consistent with the 
 permanent maintenance of the capabilities of the 
 forest ; and the object of the working-plan is, by 
 placing the Government, or the forest officer's im- 
 mediate chief, in possession of all necessary data, 
 to enable him or them to determine in how far the 
 end is likely to be attained by the measures pro- 
 posed. 
 
 A working-plan is conveniently opened with a 
 brief descriptive account of the forests, their area, 
 geographical position, distance from markets, with 
 means of transport, measure of local demand, &c., 
 with a comparison of current market rates, with 
 ascertained rates of felling, logging, and trans- 
 port. 
 
 Then taking up the blocks or subdivisions one by 
 one, they should be classed as of the first, second, 
 or third period, &c., according to the predomi- 
 
WORKING-PLANS. 1 1 3 
 
 nating age of the tre*es ; then should follow 
 particulars as to their general condition, estimated 
 amount of standing stock, and the mode adopted 
 in determining it, stating whether the forest is 
 fully stocked, the condition of the forest floor, 
 whether covered with grass or rank undergrowth, 
 &c. ; and this should be supported by a map, which 
 is conveniently coloured with different shades of 
 green, to enable the age of the prevailing trees of 
 each block to be distinguished at a glance, and 
 with some other colour or colours to denote the 
 intermixture of other than the prevailing class of 
 timber. And at the close, the information as to 
 total area, area bare, area barren or unfit for forest, 
 area stocked, with estimate of standing stock in 
 each period of growth, may be conveniently pre- 
 sented afresh in tabular form. 
 
 Next might follow proposals for the method 
 which is deemed best suited to the ascertained 
 conditions, the order in which the several blocks 
 are to be taken in hand, if rotation of area is 
 determined on, estimate of stock to be felled 
 annually, with a general budget estimate of 
 financial results, which should be the basis of 
 future annual budget estimates. Here, too, 
 account should be taken of the branches and 
 outcome of thinnings which might not repay 
 carriage to market, with proposals for its con- 
 
 H 
 
114 N TES ON FOXES TR Y. 
 
 version into charcoal, or otherwise utilising it, if 
 such intentions were entertained. Then should 
 follow proposals for reproduction, with the ex- 
 perience or data on which the method has been 
 accepted as reliable. 
 
 On the system of rotation of area, with a fairly 
 just proportion of stock of all ages, and with 
 moderate uniformity of soil (reproduction being 
 ensured), it is easy to secure uniformity of yield 
 for all time ; but on the Planter betrieb, the expe- 
 rience of Germany has shown, not only that it 
 is difficult to maintain uniformity of yield, but 
 that there is commonly a temptation to secure 
 good financial results in the present, in the hope 
 that they may be maintained permanently, at least 
 for our own time ; and as it is difficult to determine 
 the amount of standing stock and average rate of 
 annual increment in a forest of trees of all ages, 
 this hope is not always well founded. We may 
 base our plan upon a fairly reliable estimate of 
 trees of the final period, and may have fair data 
 for assuming that there is an equal number of trees 
 in the penultimate period of growth to take their 
 place when they shall have been felled ; but unless 
 we are secure of a corresponding area of trees of 
 each younger period, we may in time have to 
 suspend operations, or lower the felling age by per- 
 haps twenty years, to the lasting impoverishment 
 
WORKING-PLANS. 1 1 5 
 
 of the forest. As has been already said, we cannot 
 trust to numbers of young trees, for if these grow 
 in clumps, only one in many of them can ever reach 
 maturity. 
 
 Several * working-plans have been circulated 
 among Indian forest officers, and of these, Mr 
 Ribbentrop's working-plan of Kalu Tope in the 
 Punjab Himalayas, although dealing only with 
 one small block, furnishes a mass of detail in 
 elucidation of the method pursued, which would 
 be of great assistance to the inexperienced in 
 preparing a working-plan. The term " reducing 
 factor," employed by him in stock-taking, has been 
 rendered "form figure " in these pages. 
 
 But the Indian forest officer may frequently 
 with justice demur, that working-plans based on 
 the theory of improving our forests up to their 
 highest capabilities, and of utilising all their yield, 
 is not always applicable to Indian forests, in the 
 present relation of working costs to market value 
 of timber. There is a general assumption that 
 our forests have been subjected to draughts upon 
 their resources in excess of their capabilities ; but 
 this appears to be true only of some few classes 
 of timber which have been in excessive demand, 
 and of which the area was in no recent period 
 large, or which are found only in mixed forests, 
 in which other classes of timber preponderate, for 
 
1 1 6 NO TES ON FORES TR Y. 
 
 which, although they are often first-class timbers, 
 there is almost no demand ; and, in point of fact, 
 the annual outcome of our forests in mere quan- 
 tity is almost infinitely below the productive 
 capabilities of the area from which it is drawn. 
 Take, for example, the Bengal forests, with an esti- 
 mated area of nearly 140,000 square miles, and with 
 an average gross annual revenue under R. 140, 000. 
 Here we have in round numbers one rupee of 
 revenue from 640 acres of forest. The framing 
 of a working-plan for such a forest area would be 
 influenced by manifold considerations. Limited 
 as are the returns, they show a fair profit upon 
 outlay ; and the question arises, Could not ten 
 times or a hundred times the present outcome of 
 timber be disposed of at a similar profit? and if 
 not, does not the proportion of population to forest 
 area justify the assumption that, if the timber 
 could be brought to market at one -half or one- 
 fourth the present costs, it would then be in 
 almost unlimited demand, at a figure yielding a 
 fair profit upon the reduced costs ? and if so, we 
 should turn next to the consideration of the im- 
 provement of the means of transit. 
 
 But if the revenue were drawn only from one 
 or two classes of timber, the yield of which 
 was not materially in excess of the outcome, our 
 first consideration would be a working-plan for 
 
WORKING-PLANS. 117 
 
 this special class or classes of timber, framed on 
 the basis of promoting the spread of these timbers 
 over larger areas, and especially in those forests 
 nearest the market, or with greatest facilities of 
 transport, limiting the costs of improvement to a 
 fair proportion of current net revenue ; but having 
 done this, it would be well to form an estimate of 
 the amount of annual increment of the less-valued 
 timbers, and to bend our efforts to utilise it in 
 some form, rather than let it go to decay ; for if 
 even experience shall have confirmed the view 
 that the Department cannot take it to market at a 
 profit upon costs, an effort might be made to sell 
 it standing. 
 
 Assuming the whole Bengal forest area to be 
 bond fide forest, the annual increment will pro- 
 bably not fall below twenty cubic feet per acre, and 
 if it could be all disposed of at a profit of one 
 rupee per twenty cubic feet, the present 'net 
 revenue of the province would be multiplied two 
 thousand times, that is to say, it would yield a 
 net profit of 640 rupees per square mile, instead of 
 about five annas, as at present. 
 
 It is too frequently the case that a forest 
 officer, on assuming charge of a Division, bases his 
 budget figures on those of his predecessors, in- 
 stead of on the ascertained capabilities of the 
 forests. The relation between costs and market 
 
1 1 8 NO TES ON FO RES TR Y. 
 
 value is pretty generally known, but the relation 
 between supply and demand is as yet an unknown 
 quantity, and, with a profit on current transactions, 
 the aim should be the increase of those transactions 
 up to the capabilities of the forests. In the pur- 
 suit of this aim the demand may not keep pace 
 with the supply, but this must not be accepted as 
 the absolute limit of demand, but only as the 
 limit of demand at a given price ; if costs of tran- 
 sport can be lowered, the demand is capable of 
 unknown expansion. 
 
 There are, unfortunately, some forest Divisions 
 in which, if the accounts be subjected to close 
 criticism, it will be found that the net revenue 
 does not exceed the revenue from minor produce ; 
 in other words, the forests are being denuded of 
 their best timber for no good end ; it would be as 
 well to give it away free on the spot, as to sell it 
 at a distant market at a price not exceeding costs. 
 Such a state of things must be most unsatisfactory 
 to the officer in charge, and should tempt him to 
 bend his best efforts to remedy it. 
 
 Indian forest-work is beset with numerous 
 difficulties, but it is these very difficulties which 
 the able and enterprising forest officers of to-day 
 have to thank for rare opportunities of distin- 
 guishing themselves. The management of our 
 forests affords scope for the highest administra- 
 
WORKING-PLANS. IIQ 
 
 tive ability, and, apart from any present financial 
 consideration, the establishmeut of a sound sys- 
 tem will prove a lasting benefit to the people of 
 India. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW 
 
 AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS 
 
 WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN 
 THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY 
 WILL INCREASE TO 5O CENTS ON THE FOURTH 
 DAY AND TO $I.OO ON THE SEVENTH DAY 
 OVERDUE. 
 
 APR 18 183it 
 19 193! 
 
 
U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES 
 
 CD3Et,MSEDfl 
 
 392895 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY