VIZAGAPATAM.
that a dépôt should be established at Narasapatam at which timber should be stocked for sale and that seigniorage rates should be charged on timber and bamboos brought down from the hills. The dépôt was never opened, however, and the seigniorage fees drove merchants and ryots to supply themselves elsewhere. In 1865-66 the charges for the establishment which collected the seigniorage were Rs. 410 and the revenue only Rs. 27, and in the next year the loss on working the system rose to over Rs. 900.The Conservator, Captain (afterwards Colonel) Beddome, there-upon made a spirited attempt to get the Government to transfer this unprofitable undertaking from his budget to the Collector's. He was unsuccessful; and his interest in the matter seems to have rapidly cooled in consequence.
Desultory action followed for many years until at length the Forest Act of 1882 rendered it possible to put matters on a more satisfactory footing. Progress was then, however, unfortunately checked by differences of opinion between the Collector and the new Forest department, and by doubts as to whether the Act could be extended to the forests in the Golgonda and Pálkonda Agencies; and it was only in 1886 that any definite policy was enunciated. It was then ordered that on the hills in Golgonda taluk blocks should be selected in which unauthorized felling should be prohibited, and that in the rest of that Agency valuable timber should only be felled under license; that in Pálkonda Agency blocks should be selected and defined in which all cutting and pódu cultivation should be entirely forbidden; and that in Sarvasiddhi taluk areas not exceeding 5,000 acres in all should be selected for reservation. In the next six years, however,only one block was actually constituted a forest, and it was not until 1903 that reservation was complete. Conservation has thus had but a short trial in this district.
Of the existing forests, those in Sarvasiddhi consist merely of the scrub growing on certain of the low, red hills with which that taluk is dotted. The two largest blocks are the Vémagiri and Peddapalli reserves, which are respectively 1,611 acres and 9,077 acres in extent; and working-plans have been sanctioned for these.
The former block is described as 'exhibiting in the highest degree the effect of unrestricted felling, grazing and browsing for many years' and as containing a crop 'similar to that of all the east coast forests' but possessing 'a variety of species remarkable for so miserable a growth.' The working-plan provides for the closure of the reserve for thirty years and for the regulation of the grazing during that period.
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