THE SILVICULTURE OF INDIAN TREES. 1 75 



venture to express opinions here and there adverse to those held 

 by Professor Troup. He by no means claims finality, however, 

 but, on the contrary, is if anything too humble when he affirms 

 that his work should be regarded as nothing more than an 

 attempt to pave the way, or "in other words as merely a founda- 

 tion on which a more substantial edifice may be gradually built 

 by future workers." The Professor thinks exception may be 

 taken to the inclusion of botanical descriptions and drawings of 

 the seedlings of so very many species. They have been most 

 carefully and exquisitely rendered — the drawing and colouring 

 doing great credit to the artists of the Research Institution. 

 But to be quite frank, I personally think too much attention 

 relatively has been paid to that subject. It surely would have 

 sufficed to give a few standards, and in the text to have discussed 

 departures from these, but of course a large number of seedlings 

 would still have had to be described, since many of them manifest 

 silvicultural points of great value. It was, however, most 

 unfortunate that the Professor did not realise long before he 

 came to deal with the oaks and pines that full-page coloured 

 plates, of at least all the more important species, was absolutely 

 essential to the full realisation of the scheme of silviculture he 

 desired to inculcate. It is true that Brandis, and a few other 

 writers on Indian trees, give illustrations, but these are both 

 unsatisfactory and too scattered to be of practical value to the 

 forest officer. I think it would have been preferable had all the 

 full-page illustrations been removed from the text and placed 

 in a special volume by themselves. The practical forest officer 

 might then have carried the pictures with him, and compared 

 these with the living plants. Besides which a volume of plates 

 that may be opened out separately, while the text is being read, 

 is a great convenience, in place of having to handle a bulky 

 volume and turn backwards and forwards, to see the pictures 

 alluded to. And, I may add, it might in that case have been 

 possible to issue the text in a smaller more portable volume 

 or volumes. 



But I hasten to say that I regard the superb series of full- 

 page photographs of the forests as a revelation. They bring 

 before the observer a perfect panorama of Indian jungle plant 

 life, never before approached in beauty and completeness by 

 any previous writer. The treatment, for example, of Sal {Shorea 

 robusta) is admirable, many new facts in regard to that abundant 



