118 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
ing water-level, and occupies separate islands or terraces. On 
suitable soil Sissoo can easily be grown from seed, although it 
is a difficult tree to transplant owing to its long root-strands. It 
is a prolific seed-producer, and seeds itself easily, while its 
natural reproductive power is often increased by a free production 
of root-suckers. Under favourable circumstances it attains a girth 
of 30 inches in 12 years, and 54 inches in 30 years, representing 
respectively 24 and 3} annual rings per inch of radius; but in 
the celebrated Changa-Manga plantation, formed by irrigation 
with canal-water near Lahore, many of the trees averaged 4 feet 
in girth at 12 years of age; while in the natural forests in Oudh 
an average girth of 36 inches and height of 50 feet is attainable 
in 16 years, or at the rate of 1 inch of radius in 2? years. As 
in the case of all the other more valuable timber-trees, much 
is being done to increase the supplies required for future use. 
The Bombay BLacKwoop, perhaps better known in England 
as “Indian rosewood” (Dalbergia latifolia), is a valuable and 
extremely hard and close-grained furniture wood of a dark purple 
colour with black longitudinal streaks, deepening with age, in 
which the annual rings are quite indistinct. It is found through- 
out the whole of the Indian peninsula, but not in Burma, and 
it attains its finest growth along with teak and bamboos 
in the dry forests of the Western Ghats, where it ascends to an 
elevation of about 3500 feet. It is essentially a tropical tree, and 
attains its finest growth in the southern localities. Though not 
an uncommon tree, it is nowhere abundant. It can be easily 
raised from seed, besides freely sowing itself naturally, and it has 
a strong reproductive power in throwing out coppice-shoots. It 
is a tree of slow growth, though it ultimately reaches a height of 
80 feet, with a girth of from 12 to 15 feet, the largest recorded 
specimen being 20 feet. It takes about roo years to attain 
a girth of 6 feet. The black carved tables, chairs, sideboards, 
etc., made of this fine wood are not as fashionable now as they 
used to be, so that there is in some places less demand for the 
wood than formerly. One result of this has been that it has 
been used for sleepers; but, though well suited for this as to 
durability, it seems a pity that so fine a timber should be used 
for purposes for which less beautiful woods are equally well 
adapted. In these days of specialities in furniture, it should pay 
some large firm to develop the blackwood industry in Britain. 
The Bast (Acacia arabica), a tree of moderate size, with hard 
