62 SOCIAL SCIENTIST (1) Agriculture, being seasonal, allows humans to manage nutrients efficiently which cannot be the case with trees, given the length of the tree farming cycle. Crop rotation, fallow period, and a variety of other well known traditional devices exist which the farmers use in maintaining land fertility. These devices of course cannot be adopted by those who take to farm forestry. (2) Eucalyptus plantations also appear inappropriate in meeting the fuelwood needs of the people in comparison to the traditional trees because eucalyptus burns very quickly rendering itself useless for the cooking energy needs of the rural people. Further, the high market price of softwoods like eucalyptus preclude their use as firewood. The demand for softwoods by rayon factories as well as by those producing pulp and paper has made these plantations highly profitable. Near Delhi, plantation of eucalyptus has fetched a gross income of over Rs 10,000 an acre a year to some farmers. Additionally, the following points can be made against the present social forestry programme: (1) It has been observed that eucalyptus is not eaten by the cattle. While this is an advantage in terms of the survival of plants, it renders the plant singularly useless in meeting the local fodder requirements. Subabul, known as Kubabul to the Indian people (Indira Gandhi recently named it Subabul), has been found to be toxic for cattle. The toxicity is so pronounced that if "Subabul" leaves constitute no more than 15 percent of a mixed cattle fodder, then over just a few years their consumption will lead to mimeosis, a disease which can be fatal for the animals. Thus one of the major objectives of social forestry—meeting fodder needs and reducing the pressure of grazing on forests—is not being met. (2) It has been observed that the impact of farm forestry on employment and income distribution will be deleterious. It has freed the big farmers from dependence on labour, and reduced the average annual work available to landless labour. (3) If this orientation continues, the programmes will lead to serious changes in land use pattern which will adversely affect food availability. Extremely valuable irrigated arable land cannot be allowed to be shifted to commercial eucalyptus plantations. (4) It is clear that while farm forestry increases wood production, it does not improve per capita availability of wood for the poor and is totally useless so far as meeting the basic needs of the rural populations is concerned—needs which were being met by traditional farm trees. In the light of the above, it may be postulated that social forestry, in spite of its proclaimed objectives of satisfying the basic needs of the rural population, appears to be, in the present form, structurally and organisationally oriented towards catering to industrial and urban construction needs. This orientation persists in spite of the fact that the R and D work done by the GSIR laboratories—Banthra Research