224 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
which State forests are administered ts the public benefit.” Formal 
recognition was therein given to the necessity of “ protection from 
the devastating action of hill torrents of the cultivated plains which 
lie below them,” but no allusion was made to the necessity of 
maintaining, so far as possible, a permanent water-supply in the 
soil. Thus soil-erosion was put prominently forward, while 
agricultural utility was not so definitely kept in view—although 
as early as 1846 Dr Gibson, then Government botanist in 
Bombay, had drawn attention to the serious results to agriculture 
already in progress owing to the rapid wastage of woodlands, 
and his warnings had induced the Court of Directors to send out 
a dispatch (No. 21, dated 7th July 1847) asking the Government 
of India to investigate and report to them the “‘ effect of trees on 
the climate and productiveness of a country, and the results of the 
extensive clearances of timber.’ After a lapse of fifty-nine years 
Mr Wilmot’s bulletin is a long-deferred reply to this request, and, 
of course, it is made with special reference to existing conditions. 
In it he points out the obvious fact that the beneficial mechanical 
effects of forests should be all the greater when rainfall is either 
superabundant or scanty, when the temperature is high, and when 
the hill-sides are steep; hence tropical or sub-tropical countries 
frequently present conditions where the conservation of forests in 
suitable localities may be of vital importance. In India this is 
the case. The chief industry is agriculture, dependent on a 
favourable water-supply, provided either directly from rainfall or 
else indirectly from rivers, tanks or wells. And in the present con- 
dition of many parts of India dependence cannot be placed on 
seasonable rainfall, so that if precipitations of rain are allowed to 
run to waste, in place of being carefully conserved, India may in 
course of time find her rivers silting up and her canals running 
dry. Properly located forests tend to diminish this waste and 
to form natural reservoirs from which a perennial flow proceeds, 
and therefore in India the indirect value of forests is, perhaps, 
really greater than the direct benefits accruing as to timber, fuel, 
bamboos, etc., not forgetting the large net surplus of revenue 
annually enriching the Government treasury. 
The denudation of the hills and river-catchment areas in India 
certainly affects larger interests than those of the individual or 
the local community, for the whole country suffers when famine 
occurs over large areas, as also in a minor degree when unloosed 
torrents cause waste of water which should be stored in the soil 
