1 ( 2% )
2 ‘gp: a, the officers would all be fully occupied, there would be much work
3 to show in return for their pay, and some net rovenue to pour into thé local
4 treasuries in return for expenditure. The want of experience in officers
5 would be loss felt, and work only requiring care and general intelligence might
6 be entrusted to them. But such is not the case. Markets are all supplied more
7 cheaply from Nepal and by sea than can bo done from the Government. forcsts.
8 Moving timber from British forests is very costly, and also accompanied with
9 many risks of loss. Thus only experimental and limited operations can be
10 opened out with advantage.
11 134. It was remarked in the resolution on the report last year, 1870-71,
12 ‘ , that little had been done towards bringing the
13 reparation Of working plans for R 9” : ‘ °
14 « Reserves,” eserves” into working order. By this pro-
15 bably the preparation of ‘working plans” for the
16 Reserves 1s referred to, and some remarks on the subject appear necessary. ‘The
17 fuct 1s that as rogard the Sikkim Reserves they require at present no working
18 plans; they simply require rest and protection for some years, and only such
19 timber should be taken from them as is absolutely wanted. for some local
20 purpose,—even this had better be purchased from private forests if
21 available. While we work and sleep, timbor is steadily growing, and the
22 bare protection of tho forests from plunder and waste 1s of itself the first,
23 and a very important step in forest conservancy. In Bhutan there is still a
24 considerable stock of timbor which may be felled without injury to the forest,
25 but this stock will have to last us for several years, and we need be in no hurry
26 to fell it. It is proposed, in deferonce to the wish that seems to exist, to begin
27 next season the preliminary work of surveying and valuing reserves required
28 before preparing a working plan for each. This work has not been possible
29 hitherto. It 18 a work of time, and must not be hurried if it is to be of any
30 value. There is a great deal to do, as may be scen from a memorandum lately
31 submitted to Government on the subject, before this work can be carefully carried
32 out, and there should be some skilled officer in charge of the work; but up to
33 the present time thero is not a single officer who knows anything at all of the
34 subject in charge of a division, and the promised deputies, even though gazetted,
35 have not made their appearance.
36 135. It may here be remarked that the preparation of working plans
37 for Reserves will be expensive and tedious, and that keeping the jungle
38 fires out of the forests, and generally thinning and clearing them, are vastly
39 more important oporations. This theory about working plans and all
40 connected with it, how well soever it may be adapted to European forests, is
41 not suited for the present state gonorally of the Indian forests, and can only
42 be partially carried out owing to their nature and situation.
43 136. It is unnecessary here to describe forests in detail. The difficulty of
44 Diffvulties in the way of applying Counting and measuring trees in grass which an
45 the system of working plans. elephant can only just push through, and wluch the
46 rider can only just see over, can only be judged of by those who try it: add to
47 this oxtonsive swamps and large open spaces almost dostitute of trees, and it
48 will be easily imagined that the accuracy of results arrived at will be in very
49 limited proportion to the time and money’ which will be spent in surveying and
50 valuing. ‘The time spent for many years to come in such work is time during
51 which the bulk of the forests is being neglected, or rather given over to des-
52 truction and heavy loss and injury, during which they might have been
53 improved by thining, clearing, and marking off the timber to be felled, &e.
54 Under these latter vperations their extent and value would become generally
55 known, and preparation made for the application of more scientific operations
56 or system to follow. The establishments at present are piers inadequate
57 to as much field work during the short season which is available for such
58 work, and the absence of timber for markets and consequent revenue renders
59 Government unwilling to grant more officers; as in the Lower Provinces
60 9