1 ( 15 )
2 PART I.—SPECIAL.
3 HEAD JII.—UNRESERVED OR DISTRICT FORESTS.
4 ayes Sate
5 NORTHERN DIVISION.
6 86. The only woodlands of any value in this district, with the exception of
7 Ellichour District the Mailghat Forests, consist of babool buns, and
8 aise , these are confined for the most part to the Ellichpur
9 Talook.
10 87. The enumeration of the babool buns given in last year’s Report is, I find,
11 Maicu hens hardly correct. The exact details have since been
12 obtamed from the Survey and Settlement Commis
13 sioner, and arc as follows :—
14 Villages Area of
15 Districts. in which Number of Buns in
16 situated. = acres.
17 Ellichpur Talook 423 8,820
18 76 1,013
19 Darriapur ___s,, cen is | 33
20 Total .. 9,883
21 The district establishment has been engaged since the commencement of the work-
22 ing season in preparing maps and registers of these buns, with a view to the intro-
23 duction shortly of a regular system of working them, by which they may be made
24 to yield a constant annual supply of wood to the district.
25 88. It is proposed to work them as coppice on a 15 years’ rotation, and
26 operations will be commenced over a fixed area dur-
27 ing the current year, and experiments made with
28 the object of ascertaining the surest and cheapest means of raising a fresh growth
29 of babool to supplement the produce of the coppice stools; for &t present owing to
30 the distance the trees as a rule stand from one another, the full quantity of timber
31 is not realized, that the land is capable of yielding.
32 Proposed system of working.
33 89. <A few of the younger babool buns were pruned during the year, the
34 Se eee establishment having previously been instructed in
35 ‘ia the method of performing this operation. The pro-
36 ceeds of sale of prunings little more than sufficed to cover the expenditure
37 incurred.
38 90. In 1870-71, Colonel Stubbs, then Deputy Commissioner of Ellichpur,
39 bientariita endeavoured to introduce the cocoa and betel nut
40 trees into the southern portion of the Durriapoor
41 Talook, which presents a marked contrast to the rest of the district, in being almost
42 entirely denuded of trees of any kind, attributable, Colonel Stubbs inferred, to the
43 soil being so strongly impregnated with salt. Salt, however, being used as a
44 mauure for cocoa and betel nut troes, he concluded that they might readily be
45 grown here, and accordingly directed an experiment being made on the banks of
46 the Chundra river.
47 This experiment, Captain MacKenzie remarks, ‘‘ has been so far successful, and
48 the cocoanut trees are flourishing admirably.”