intervals of six feet by six, the object being to produce long, straight poles for the river protection works of the Public Works department. In the Bendamúrlanka block, where the rotation is ten years, the seedlings are put out at an interval of nine feet by nine. In both areas thinnings are made after the fifth year to admit light to induce increase in girth; and in both of them the method of reproduction employed is clear felling and replanting.
The artificial regeneration of the mangrove has been undertaken during the past three years in the Coringa reserve, a valuable swamp forest about twelve miles from the important fire wood market at Cocanada. Natural reproduction is hindered by the unsuitability of the ground under the trees, which, being raised year after year by silt, becomes hard and dry during the season (the north-east monsoon)when the seed falls, and allows the seed to be carried away by the tide before it can take root. The higher and drier portions give very little hope of ever being restocked with anything except inferior species of tilla (Excœcaria Agallocha) which coppices freely. The mangrove itself gives poor result from coppicing, and consequently, in the lower and softer portions of the swamp, sowing and dibbling have been largely resorted to. The seed is sown broad cast wherever the sea recedes enough to leave the ground bare and the latter is soft enough for the seed to sink in; while where the surface is hard or permanently covered by water, the slower and more costly method of dibbling in the seed is followed. About 600 acres have been sown in three years at an average cost of twelve and a half annas per acre.
Experiments made with exotics and foreign varieties have not given satisfactory results. Log-wood plants raised from seed imported from Jamaica have been put down in the Coringa swamp forests in different localities, but without Success. Attempts have also been made to re-stock elevated parts of the same marsh with dry-land species, but owing to want of rain the result was very disheartening. In the Pegha reserve in Bhadraáhalam taluk some 25 acres; were sown with teak seed from Coimbatore in August 1903, but a year later only 500 seedlings were to be found.
The character of the forests of the district naturally differs widely in different localities. Along the tidal creeks of the Gódávari river near the coast runs a mangrove jungle which extends southwards from Coringa for a distance of about 35 miles with an average width of five miles. About one-third of this area belongs to zamindars and the rest to Government. The zamindari portion is mere scrub jungle, having been
