CONTINENTAL NOTES FRANCE. 57 



the field, in the domain of silviculture, which at present is the 

 most obscure and the most worth investigation. 



As an example of mechanical action, I may mention a striking 

 instance that came under my own notice in India. The forest 

 of Bhinga, in Oudh, was one that had been very hardly used — 

 heavily felled, excessively grazed and burnt, with the result that 

 the soil was extremely hard. There were, however, here and 

 there some ancient stems of Sal {Shorea robusta). The Sal 

 seeds in the hot weather, and the seed falls at the break of the 

 rains. We hoed up an irregular patch under some Sal seed- 

 bearers just previous to the rains, and this resulted in a thick 

 crop of seedlings covering exactly the hoed-up area, but not one 

 occurred outside it. 



IV. "In the last century the robinia was extravagantly 

 belauded. Since the results of its cultivation did not answer 

 entirely to the hopes entertained of it, people have since neglected 

 it too much." So wrote the eminent savant, Mathieu, in 1876, 

 and M. Seurre has a vigorous article in the Bulletin triinestriel 

 de Franche Cointe et Belfort on this text. There exists against 

 the species, he says, a prejudice which is entirely unjustifiable. 

 Mathieu, in his Forest Flora, wrote — " Its wood is, from the 

 earliest years, heavy, hard, nervous, elastic, of a durability 

 at least equal to oak, of a vertical resistance a third superior to 

 oak, which places it in the first rank for wheelwrights' work 

 and carriage-building. It is preferable to all other timbers for 

 props of various kinds. It takes a good polish, and can be 

 used in cabinet making. It can be worked far better than 

 oak, elm or ash." Further, nothing stands immersion or 

 exposure better than the robinia. It can also be used as a 

 building timber. So long as it has plenty of room and is not 

 pruned it will grow to large dimensions. Finally, it makes one 

 of the best fuels. Such are its intrinsic qualities ; its cultural 

 properties are not less remarkable. It grows extraordinarily 

 quickly, and this, joined to the fact that the wood is valuable 

 from the first, renders it promptly remunerative. It fruits 

 regularly and abundantly each year, but does not grow easily 

 from seed. It shoots from the stool and yields suckers from its 

 earliest years so extravagantly that no other species surpasses it 

 in this respect. Its habitat is extensive. Being very hardy it 

 succeeds almost anywhere. (The writer, it must be remembered, 

 is talking of France, but he has seen it growing at Simla, at 



