In the earlier stages of the forest settlement in Pólavaram and Yellavaram the officers in charge of the Agency held that reservation had been too wholesale and that the allowance of jungle left in the neighbourhood of villages to provide for the extension or rotation of cultivation and for the supply of timber for implements and other domestic purposes was inadequate. Mr. (now Sir A. T.) Arundel, then a Member of the Board of Revenue, consequently visited the district in October 1893 and enquired into the matter on the spot. He came to the conclusion that the habits of the hill men had not received adequate consideration, and it was accordingly ordered that the Assistant Agent and the District Forest Officer should personally investigate the complaints and see that equitable claims were satisfied. Without laying down hard-and-fast rules it was indicated that pódus which had long been abandoned and were covered with jungle need not necessarily be excluded from reservation, but that well recognized pódus should be excluded and handed over to the cultivators; and that for the rotation and extension of cultivation a sufficient extent (eight times the existing area annually under cultivation as a maximum) should be set aside.
In Bhadráchalam the settlement was completed without controversy. The hill men of that taluk had long been accustomed to the idea of reservation, and considerable leniency was shown in the provision of areas for cultivation. It is however only in the last few years that pódu cultivation in the reserves there has been completely stopped.
In Rampa, the scene of a violent rebellion as recently as 1879, it was considered better not to run any risk of arousing discontent by attempts at reservation, and the forests there were never demarcated at all. They are still administered on a system different from that followed in the rest of the district.
The susceptibilities of the hill men led to cautious systems of forest administration throughout the Agency, all orders being issued through the Agent or his Special Assistant, but in Rampa the methods adopted were quite distinct. The country was exempted from the operation of all but section 26 of Chapter III, and Chapters V, VII, IX and X of the Forest Act. These rendered it possible to regulate the cutting and transit of timber, and special rules were drawn up regarding those matters. The people were allowed to cut timber for their own use except tamarind, jack, ippa, soap-nut, gall-nut and mango trees; but any one desirous of exporting any wood had to take out a permit before doing so, to pay certain fees, and to cart it by one or other of certain prescribed routes,
