1 ( 5 )
2 “The following rules are promulgated for the information and guidance
3 of Gurjat Rajahs :-—
4 “* 1st.— Toila cultivation should be brought under the Rajah’s supervision ;
5 there are already vast tracts of scant jungle previously cleared available for
6 totta cultivation. With these Rajahs should not interfere or prevent cultiva-
7 tion; but in future no Rajah should permit any new land to be cleared on
8 which good timber is growing. Those tracts most remote from villages, and
9 where fuel timber exists, should be carefully set apart, and the cutting of
10 timber within fixed limits should be strictly prohibited. Without the Rajah’s
11 express permission—and this permission should only be given to cut trees
12 which have attained a girth of not less than a girth of three cubits from
13 the ground—all trees on the reserved tract of smaller girth should be strictly
14 preserved, and not allowed to be cut till they attain a girth of three cubits.
15 This prohibition will in no way affect the convenience of the Lael i who can
16 cut poles, posts, and ploughshares in the unreserved jungles and toi/a lands, and
17 any sort of tree but those ordered to be preserved in other lands.”
18 11. In Assam also regulations have been introduced as
19 to the size of trees to be felled in the forests. These orders
20 have operated for good, as from the Assistant Conservator’s
21 report it appears that the outturn of small timber has been
22 considerably checked, and the stock of standing timber pre-
23 served in proportion. The number of logs brought down by
24 traders last year was only 916, against an average of 3,544 in
25 previous years.
26 12. In the North-Western Provinces, the Conservator writes
27 as follows, regarding the measures that have been taken to
28 suppress forest fires, and other conservancy operations during
29 the past ycar. The success of these operations generally is
30 creditable to the exertions of the officers of the department, for
31 owing to the enormous height and density of the grass in the
32 Sub-Himalyan forest tracts, the suppression of forest fires isa
33 work of peculiar difficulty.
34 The fire conservancy operations were quite successful in Kamaon, Dera
35 Dan, and Jounsar; partially so in Garhwal; but in Gorakhpur they were
36 a complete failure.
37 In Kamaon, about 20 square miles were preserved from fire, including
38 the sfl forests of Mohan, Durgadeh, and Khairali, which are the most
39 important forests to preserve, as felling operations have been going on in them
40 for the last three years, and numbers of young seedlings are springing up in all
41 the open spaces.
42 In Dera Din, six patches of good sfl and sein forest, containing
43 altogether 245 acres, were effectually preserved. Strips of grass about 6 fee
44 wide were cut down on each side of the line and through the intervenin
45 grass, and cross-paths of the same breadth were cut at intervals of 50 yards ;
46 these isolated patches were then set fire to, one after the other, and a good
47 broad line was thus formed.
48 It was found by experience that there was no happy time of the day
49 when the grass could be burnt and still the fire kept under control without
50 cutting lines; either it was too wet from the night’s dew to burn at all, or it
51 was so dry that such an enormous blaze sprung up that no one could go near
52 enough to put it out.
53 In Jounsar it is a very much easier matter, for, in the upper hills, the
54 yrrass is not sufficiently long and dense to render the fire uncontrollable. Here
55 lines of from 10 to 20 feet broad are burnt round the outside of the forests ;
56 the whole of the deodar ‘forests in the Jounsar Division, besides the inferior
57 (mixed pine, oak, &c.) forests of Deoban, Thona, Chonsal, Onol, Roru, and
58 Kinani Pani were preserved. Three or four fires were lighted, but they were
59 put out before any material damage was done.
60 Arrangements were made to preserve two tracts of sil forest in Garhwal :
61 one near the Ganges, of about five miles in circumference, was saved; but the
62 other, in the Patli Din, was accidentally burnt.
63 In Kamaon and Garhwa] the sfl forests are not, as a rule, very much
64 infested with creepers; what there ure, are pretty fairly kept down by the
65 matrols und rangers, who oat them whenever they come across them in their
66 ats.