Page:Provincial geographies of India (Volume 1).djvu/108

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FORESTS
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No forest can be declared "reserved" or "protected" unless it is owned in whole or in part by the State. It is enough if the trees or some of them are the property of the Government. In order to safeguard all private rights a special forest settlement must be made before a forest can be declared to be reserved." In the case of a protected forest it is enough if Government is satisfied that the rights of the State and of private persons have been recorded at a land revenue settlement. After deducting income belonging to the year 1909-10 realized in 1910-n, the average income of the two years ending 1911-12 was £81,805 (Rs. 1,227,082) and the average expenditure £50,954 (Rs. 764,309).

Sources of Income.— In the mountain forests the chief source of income is the deodar, which is valuable both for railway sleepers and as building timber. The blue pine is also of commercial value. Deodar, blue pine, and some chir are floated down the rivers to depots in the plains. Firwood is inferior to cedar and pine, and the great fir forests are too remote for profitable working at present. There are fine mountain forests in Chitral, on the Safed Koh, and in Western Wazi'ristan, but these have so far not even been fully explored. The value of the hill forests may be increased by the success which has attended the experimental extraction of turpentine from the resin of the chir pine. The bamboo forests of Kangra are profitable. At present an attempt is being made to acclimatize several species of Eucalyptus in the low hills. The scrub jangal in the plains yields good fuel. As the area is constantly shrinking it is fortunate that the railways have ceased to depend on this source of supply, coal having to a great extent taken the place of wood. To prevent shortage of fuel considerable areas in the tracts commanded by the new canals are being reserved for irrigated forests. A forest