THE CHIEF TIMBER-TREES OF INDIA. 127 
they taste somewhat like pressed figs. The outer coating of the 
fruit is also edible, being either eaten raw or else cooked as a 
vegetable, and the inner coating is dried and ground into meal; 
while a yellowish-green, butter-like oil, which soon becomes 
rancid in that hot climate, is expressed from the kernel, and 
used by the hill-tribes or sold for soap-boiling. In this respect the 
mahwa resembles the shea tree (Bassza Parkit) of Western Africa, 
the “shea butter” obtained from which Mungo Park, the famous 
traveller, declared to be whiter, firmer, and richer in flavour than 
the best ordinary butter he had ever tasted, with the additional 
advantage of keeping fresh and sweet for a twelvemonth without 
any admixture of salt. On account of the edible value of 
its flowers and fruit, the mahwa-tree is worked with a view to 
these, rather than for its fine timber, and special provisions are 
accordingly made for the protection of the oldest and best trees 
growing in forests worked under a systematic plan. It seeds 
freely, and the fresh seed germinates well; but, being oily, its 
germinative power soon passes away. It is much cultivated 
either in avenues along road-sides, and in “topes” or clumps by 
itself or along with mango, and in such places it often sows itself 
spontaneously. 
Nothing like the whole of the areas throughout which these 
chief timber-trees of India occur have been brought under the 
direct control of the Indian Forest Department, although the 
area at present administered by it amounts to close upon 120,000 
square miles, over two-thirds of which, or about 81,000 square 
miles (amounting to about one-twelfth of the total area of 945,000 
Square miles of British territory), have been reserved and legally 
settled as permanent forest estates to be administered for the 
benefit of the people, and of their agriculture, and of the finances 
of the Indian empire. These great forest estates already yield 
a net annual income of about £500,000 a year, after payment 
of all charges directly or indirectly connected with the working, 
maintenance, protection, improvement, and increase of the 
marketable products they supply, and leaving out of considera- 
tion enormous quantities of timber, fuel, bamboos, grazing and - 
grass, thatching material, etc., supplied free from payment to 
villagers resident in the vicinity of the reserved forests. This 
net revenue, moreover, is steadily expanding under the careful 
husbandry of the well-trained and hard-working corps of officers 
forming the Indian Forest Service. 
