1 ( 15)
2 PART IV.
3 YIELD OF FORESTS.
4 42. The following statement shows the yield or outturn of
5 timber from the forests of the several provinces during the past
6 year :—
7 Pieces of timber.
8 Rs.
9 Bengal... =e eT oie 3,421
10 North-Western Provinces ee ae 81,572
11 Punjab... ag aes ... 112,358
12 Oudh . ee _ a 2,915
13 Central Provinces oer ee see 9,267
14 Burma ... ae ie ese §6=©.: BB 34
15 Mysore ... bee es o. 86,282
16 Coorg sae ee ne .. 22,779
17 Berar a = ae .-. 32,260
18 Total ... 323,088
19 43. The heaviest timber operations yet attempted by the
20 Forest Department in India, are those connected with the supply
21 of sleepers to the Rajputana State Railway. The following table
22 exhibits the number and valuc of sleepers. delivered from the
23 forests of the North-Western Provinces to the Railway works at
24 Dehli and Agra during the past year; all the arrangements for
25 preparation and transport having been carried out by the Forest
26 Officers :-—
27 Ko. of sleepers.
28 7,436 slecpers, 10 x 10° x 5° delivered at Dehli at Rs. 4-13 = 36,026 6 -
29 0
30 From Jnaonear
31 14,321 ,, Gx Bx 4, Agra , ,» 2-12 — 39,882 12 0
32 20,009 ,, Gx Bx 4s” ,, Dehli ,, , 29 = 61,273 1 O
33 117,500 , Oxexd ,, Agra ,, » 2-12 = 4,05,625 0 0
34 From Bhngarati 4
35 60,100 »» ll'x 8° x & » » #» S2 = 8,09,850 0 O
36 ( 22.665 , Six Sx, » » «eGll-Ge 16,290 7 6
37 ners emi ci ey
38 ToraL ... 272,381 Sleepers Rs. 858,147 10 6
39 The whole contuining about 427,000 cubic feet or 8,550 tons of sawn timber.
40 For the preparation of the above sleepers more than 4,000
41 sawyers and 8,000 other workmen were employed. The col-
42 lection of these gangs of men, however, represents perhaps
43 the least difficult part of the work. The necessity of keep-
44 ing up a supply of rrain for them at a great distance from
45 all markets, was a task involving heavy responsibility, and one
46 which often caused the greatest anxiety to the officers work-
47 ing these gangs. Every article of food required for consumption
48 had to be conveyed from the Sub-Himalayan markets to the
49 deodar forests, which lie immediately beneath the snowy range.
50 To enable this to be done, the roads referred to in a former part
51 of this report were constructed, some of them with great labour,
52 and at a considerable cost. For the road up the Bhagarati
53 alone, £30,000 were expended; this road, for a distance of 112
54 miles, is carried across a series of precipices, formerly barcly
55 passable for the flocks of goats and sheep yearly brought down
56 by the Bhutia shepherds. So great were the difficulties. of the
57 road, that even the fanaticism of the Hindu faith, which leads
58 thousands of its followers annually to undertake long and arduous
59 pilgrimages to the most distant parts of India, and to the less
60 sacred shrines of Badrinath and Kedarnath in the Himalayas,
61 failed to tempt more than 500 devotees annually to ‘the most
62 sacred of all their shrines, the source of the Holy Ganges at Gangu-
63 tri. It is from the deodar forests, growing on the mountains
64 iminediately surrounding this shrine, that the largest proportion