THE CHIEF TIMBER-TREES OF INDIA. 119g 
pinkish-white heartwood turning reddish-brown on exposure and 
mottled with dark streaks, is one of the most important trees in 
the arid regions of western and northern India. Its true home 
is among the sandy wastes of Sind, Rajputana, Guzerat, and the 
North Deccan, but it is also’ found self-sown and cultivated 
throughout all the drier regions of Central and Upper India, and 
much i done for its cultivation in Sind and the Punjab. Some- 
times it grows gregariously in patches, sometimes merely 
scattered about in single trees or small knots. In these dry 
tracts, usually poor in timber, it is an exceedingly valuable tree, 
yielding not only fine timber, very durable when well seasoned, 
and much used for wheels, sugar and oil presses, rice pounders, 
agricultural implements, etc., and making excellent fuel, but also 
furnishing tanning and dyeing products from its bark and pods, 
while the branches and leaves are used as fodder, and the thorny 
boughs for fencing fields. The babdl tracts of the arid regions 
are therefore carefully reserved and worked systematically. 
Though babil is a free seed-producer, reproduction is often 
difficult within the reserved areas, as insects destroy the seed. 
To obviate this difficulty goats are often grazed inside the 
reserves and allowed to feed on the pods, and when the seeds 
pass through undigested they have a better chance of germinat- 
ing. Otherwise it has good reproductive power and coppices 
well, while it may also be grown from cuttings. Though not 
usually a large tree, it reaches a height of 50 to 60 feet, with a 
girth of 6 to 8 feet, the largest known tree being one at 
Pandharpur, in Bombay, 80 feet high and 14 feet in girth. In 
Sind it usually takes about 35 years to reach 4 feet in girth, and 
about 55 to attain the mature girth of 6 feet, while its rate of 
growth is generally quicker in the Punjab. In some parts of 
Madras the babil forests are worked as coppice-under-standards, 
with a rotation of 20 years, in order to furnish supplies of 
much-needed fuel and fencing-thorns. 
The INDIAN JUNIPER, or HIMALAYAN PENCIL CEDAR (Juniperus 
macropoda), is one of the most important timber-trees in 
Beluchistan, whence it extends westwards into Afghanistan and 
eastwards to Nepal, growing at elevations varying from 5000 to 
14,000 feet. Its light, moderately hard, and fragrant wood, red 
in colour and often with a purple tinge, though it has little 
strength, is used in these districts, where timber is at a premium, 
for all sorts of purposes, from building temples, and forming 
