FORESTS IN INDIA.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 4925, 5 January 1877, Page 3

FORESTS IN INDIA.

The Deputy Conservator, in his report for 1»74-75 on Berar, with its 660 square miles of State forests and 3600 square miles of unreserved forest, which is controlled by the civil officers in charge of districts, observes that the effects o ( the exclusion of fires from the forests are becoming more and more apparent. On the better wooded hill-sides' grass is gradually disappearing, and the surface of the soil is getting covered with leaves and other vegetable matter in various stages of decay; and in the more open portions of the forest natural reproduction is making steady progress. But the results are not confined to the vegetation of the reserve; climatic and other changes are taking place. The extreme beat of the hot weather is modified by increased moisture, diminished radiation, and other effects of a, dense and extensive undergrowth, while in open tracts frosts are becoming common in the cold season. Water is much more plentiful throughout the reserve than it was a few years ago. There is scarcely a nullah of any Bize that does not contain a few pools of water in the hot weather, whereas formerly it was the exception to find water anywhere after February, except in the main streams. Informer years sudden floods used to occur regularly in rivers at the commencement of the rains, but since 1871 they have occurred later, and with less severity year by year, which is attributed to the effect of the unburnt vegetation in retarding surface drainage. There is less mortality at the commencement of the rains among the cattle in the reserve than in the unreserved forests. The cattle are, moreover, in better condition. This is attributed to their not being able to gorge themselves with young green grass, as they do in burnt jungles. On the other hand, it has to be noticed that the climate of the reserve appears to be becoming more unhealthy; fever and dysentery are prevalent, more particularly at the end of the rains and commencement of the cold weather. Further experience of forest conservancy will be watched with much interest.