VIZAGAPATAM.
with the consent of the respective owners of those properties, of rules under the Forest Act. The Vizianagram forests consist, with the exception of a small area round about Anantagiri, of scrub jungles on the low hills in the plains, similar to those of Sarvasiddhi above referred to, and are not of great interest.
The forests of Jeypore, on the other hand, are the finest and most extensive in all the district. Reservation in these began in earnest in 1000, and up to date 61 blocks, aggregating 324 square miles or 2½ per cent, of the total area of the estate, have been reserved; while proposals for reserving an additional 125 square miles are now before the Agent (whose sanction to proposed reservations is necessary under the rules);1[1] and another 597 square miles is undergoing the preliminary processes of selection, demarcation or survey under the care of the estate's Forest officer Mr Eber Hardie.2[2] The biggest of the reserved blocks is Dharangád, on the Rámagiri side of Jeypore taluk, which is 60,000 acres in extent, while two others in Malkanagiri taluk measure respectively 28,800 acres and 17,500 acres. Adjoining Dharangád are other blocks now under survey, and when these have been reserved there will be an unbroken stretch of 100,000,acres of sál forest in that corner of the estate.
This action has not been taken a moment too soon, for the forests of the estate have already been grievously injured by unrestricted lopping, girdling, ringing, felling and burning.
As far back as 1872, Mr. H. G. Turner reported that the exclusive right to the timber of Malkanagiri had been leased by the then manager of the taluk, Bangára Dévi, for an inadequate sum to a man who had proceeded to 'cut down every stick of wood it would pay him to export. The forests in the neighbourhood of the Saveri are ruined.' Shortly afterwards he suggested that Government should lease the forests of the estate to preserve them from further denudation. He pointed out that the Indrávati and Saveri (which are the only two tributaries of the Gódávari which carry any considerable hot-weather supply and which are thus the mainstay of the second-crop cultivation in the Gódávari delta) were entirely dependent for their water upon the forests of Jeypore; and he declared that these latter were rapidly being wiped out of existence. He said —
'I can myself call to mind a score of hills that have been completely cleared of forest within five years. I have hunted bison in the rough
