be ripe for cutting at from 50 to 100 years of age according to the kind of tree, and that it would be even more profitable to clear the soil altogether, whenever it may be suited to agriculture. Again, the smaller the forest may be, the more obvious are the disadvantages of preserving it, and the less apparent are those motives which render its preservation so vitally important to the native. The forests must be in the hands of a manager at once disinterested, far-seeing, and with resources for administration on a wide scale: and in most countries he can only be looked for among the ablest officers of the State. We do not say that the State has always proved itself a trustworthy agent; on the contrary, it has often yielded to sudden financial pressure, and we may draw the attention of Indian statesmen to the results which, according to M. Clave, followed the sale by the French Government of vast tracts of forest-land in the crisis of 1831. The purchaser cleared the land for agriculture, as our own buyers of waste lands will do, and the Government is now seriously considering whether these very tracts must not be re-purchased at heavy loss, and re-planted at the public expense. But the State is infinitely more likely to prove a good manager than any private owner, far more capable of seeing its real interest, and of acting accordingly. Even the State of Massachussets has taken order in its forests, and Mr. Emerson has recorded that the work requires the consecutive care and experience of generation after generation. All history, all experience of the motives which sway individuals, prove that if the forests are to be kept up at all, they must be entrusted to an authoritative, enlightened and permanent administration.

The causes, primary and secondary, which make this preser-. vation of forests a matter of paramount national importance, are not far to seek. Every one understands, or should understand, the working of the natural agencies by which the earth is watered. The sun draws up from the oceans cubic miles of water, which is carried abroad by the winds in the direction where the greatest heat prevails. So, as Maury* shows, when the great arid plains of Central Asia become heated, the equatorial currents of air rush in as the southwestern monsoons, to supply the upward draught caused by rarefaction. These winds are loaded with moisture from the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea; they meet with a colder temperature on the Western Ghats, and there, and wherever they pass over hills, mountains, or high forest-covered

* Physical Geography of the Sea.

table-land, the cold condenses this moisture into vapour which precipitates in the form of rain. By these monsoons are fed the rivers, the wells and the reservoirs of India; the last drop is caught by the high range of the Himalayas and stored up in the shape of snow, and the fertility and wealth which this water supply creates, may be calculated by a comparison of the rich champaign of Hindustan with the rainless deserts north of the great mountains.

What part is assigned to forests in this admirable irrigationsystem of Nature? Their general effect, especially in countries in or near the tropics, is to cool the atmosphere, and thus to quicken the condensation of vapour. They shelter the grounds from intense solar irradiation, and multiply upon their branches and leaves the surfaces which cool by radiation. The regions of greatest precipitation are the forest-covered Andes in SouthWestern America, and the district round Cherrapoonjee in Bengal. On the other hand, a French traveller, M. Blanqui, records in 1841, that no rain had fallen for three years in Malta, since the woods had been cleared for the extension of cottongrowing, and it has been especially remarked in St. Helena and in Egypt, that extensive plantations have increased the fall of late years. It is also commonly asserted among the agriculturists of the Indian plains, that the rainfall is less copious and less regular than formerly, although they do not of course connect it in any way with the annual spread of cultivation or the clearance of jungle.

But the forests not only promote condensation, and thus attract and increase the supply of rain, their still more special function is to regulate its storage and distribution. The rainfall is disposed of in three ways. A certain quantity is drawn up again to the air by evaporation very soon after its fall; of the remainder, part drains from off the surface of the soil into watercourses, and part is absorbed by the earth. The superficial drainage only takes place to any extent from non-absorbent soils-such as stiff clay, or from rock. The water courses are thus filled suddenly, and subside as speedily; they are useless as a supply to be calculated upon. Where the soil is porous and absorbs readily, the superficial drainage does not begin until the substratum is completely soaked through, and it is then that the action of forests comes into play. On the sides of hills, wherever they are bare of trees, the loosened earth is carried down in a liquid mass at a rate proportionate to the slope, which is left denuded of soil and furrowed into ravines. Where, on the contrary, the slope is wooded, the water drains off gently and gradually, the rainfall

has been checked and distributed by the leaves and branches, it trickles softly to the ground, and its superficial downflow is broken constantly by the trees and the smaller vegetation.

But the water which is completely absorbed is most precious, as it forms the reserve which supplies all our springs and wells in the dry season, and whatever quantity can be thus saved from superficial drainage or evaporation is clear gain. It is obvious that what is here required is a light porous soil to suck up like a sponge the water that would either evaporate from pools, or drain off impermeable slopes. And, as we have shown above, it is only the forest that can keep the slopes from being denuded of this soil. It breaks the violence of the downpour, and sprinkles over the ground the water which would otherwise hollow it out into puddles. Its roots bind the soil in its place, and actually serve as conducting lines, which aid the filtering of the rain into the lower layers. It is by thus causing gradual distillation and infiltration, that the forests keep their streams clear and perennial. Their operation produces the difference between the brooks issuing out of the sub-Himalayan forests, as in Rohilcund or upper Oude, and the nullahs of the lower plains.

Upon the perfect adjustment of this machinery for absorption and distillation depends the whole irrigation supply of a country. If the rainfall drains off too rapidly, there will be excessive floodings followed by intermittent droughts,-if the process goes on too slowly, the water is apt to stagnate and to create marshes upon levels too thickly wooded, but this latter state of things is much less harmful and more easily remedied than the former. It may be seen anywhere in the Terai forests, just as the consequences of denudation are marked in deep splitting ravines, and arid stony banks on every bare hillside, to which only the slow growth of years can restore vegetative and productive soil.

6

Dr. Brandis, Inspector General of Forests, observes in one of his reports: Even where the hills do not rise more than 1,000 or 2,000 feet, it is of great importance for the fertility of the sides ' and valleys to have the ridges and upper part of the slopes well 'covered with forest. The rain, instead of rushing down the hill'sides in torrents and carrying away the soil, thereby silting up 'the valleys, will to a great extent be retained and filtered into the ground, thereby feeding springs lower down the hills and 'effecting a more regular drainage throughout the year.

"These advantages are felt to such an extent in temperate climes, that large sums are spent annually in France and dif'ferent parts of Germany in re-planting plateaus and high ridges

' in mountainous regions, which in former ages were covered 'with forests. In the tropics, particularly where the country is 'comparatively dry, the injurious effect of the absence of forests 'in such localities will be felt in a much higher degree.'

M. Clave gives a remarkable and instructive description of the state to which the highland districts of the south coast of France and of Savoy have been reduced by the wholesale destruction of the woods on the hill ranges. He shows by statistics that production and population have diminished with appalling rapidity. A recent writer has asserted that between the 15th and 18th centuries the country of Haute Provence lost a full half of its culturable soil, and the Prefect of the Basses Alpes in his report of 1853 writes: If prompt and energetic 'measures are not taken, it is almost possible to calculate the date 'at which the French Alps will be completely desert.' Another writer, M. Suvell, shows how the snows melt so rapidly on the bare mountain sides as to produce furious mountain torrents, and he says that this result follows so certainly and speedily upon the felling of a hill forest, that it has been observed and commonly attested by one generation of inhabitants. This denudation M. Clave points out is aided and consummated by another cause, which may be new to many of our readers,-the system of sheep pasturage, upon which a series of articles has just appeared in the Annales Forestières.' Vast flocks of sheep and goats go up every year from the plains of Provence and Piedmont to feed in the cool highlands of the Lower Alps. It is said that these animals by the trampling of their pointed feet, by their incessant clambering over every rock and into every cleft of the hill, and by their peculiar habit of tearing up the vegetation on which they feed, instead of browsing like the ruminants, all of which habits loosen and dislodge the scanty soil,-utterly ruin the pastures. And as the sheep and goats are a hardier race and much more easily fed than large cattle, the former have completely ousted the latter, and the traditional occupation of the mountain villagers is gone. Such disastrous experience has not been thrown away upon the European Governments concerned. They have vigorously taken up the question, have sent out commissions, consulted the pro vincial Councils, and have adopted schemes for prevention and remedy. The French Government is carefully re-planting all the upland slopes, formerly wooded, which belong to the State, but it is still hesitating whether the communes or the private owners should be allowed the alternative of re-planting or 'expropriation.' It has been clearly proved that re-planting does not pay the immediate owners, who will therefore not undertake

it, if they can escape. But M. Clave forcibly argues that in such extremity private interests are out of the question, that the interests of fifty districts are at stake, and that after all, the result of an unreasoning respect for the rights of property will be that in another generation the property itself will disappear, carrying with it the properties of many other innocent persons. On the other hand, the impoverished shepherds of the mountains cling to the scanty pasturage that yet remains, and it is clear that the prohibition of sheep feeding, though indispensable to re-planting, will ruin them for the time. An imperial decree has just been passed after much discussion, empowering the State to mark off certain tracts which must be re-planted. If the owners refuse, the Forest Administrator expropriates them, and undertakes the planting; the owners may redeem the land by payment of expenses incurred any time within five years. The forest officers have also to arrest the progress of denudation where wood still exists, and at the same time to preserve the pasturage as much as possible. With this object they are authorized to take in charge waste lands, they clear it of brambles and scrub, which they pile up and burn for the fertilizing ashes, they take up good mould where it is useless, and spread it where it is wanted, and then irrigate the pasture lands by means of little trenches which catch and distribute the rainfall, instead of allowing it to drain off down the ravines.

We are well aware that the general effects of forests, and of their destruction upon the rain supply of a country, are ordinarily known to educated persons, and we do not suppose that there is any thing specially moral or of high scientific interest in the measures taken by the French Government. But the sketch that we have given may possibly enlarge the circle of those who in this country understand and pay attention to such matters, and may thus serve to strengthen the hands of the various administrations in carrying out their plans for the conservation and development of forests. It may show to those who may be galled by the overriding of their private interests how vitally essential is the action of State authority in this department, and that the restrictive and prohibitory measures of Indian Governors fall considerably short of the enactments found necessary in Europe. We have followed M. Clave in dealing principally with France, but the Bavarian and Prussian Forest régimes are still more sweeping and severe. In India the system of forest reserves has been ordinarily followed; large tracts are marked off for special conservation, and the forests on waste lands available for sale have also been placed under régime. But we believe that nowhere has the Local Government interfered with forests on acknowledged