238 Dr, H. F. C. Cleghorn on the Hedge Plants of India. 



extent the plants adapted for live fences have been made sub- 

 servient to that use in the oeconomy of agriculture. Supplied 

 with such materials for hedge-making as few countries possess, we 

 have wretched enclosures, — in many parts none at all, and cul- 

 tivators go on in the old way of their ancestors, whose footsteps 

 they follow with the utmost devotion and reverence. Some 

 carefully tie the necks of the sheep and donkeys to their fore- 

 legs to prevent their straying over the plains : other villagers by 

 general agreement drive away the cattle at the beginning of the 

 monsoon, and again permit them to roam unherded as soon as 

 the rains are over. 



If the traveller stations himself on one of the detached conical 

 hills or droogs, which form a peculiar feature of Southern India, 

 for the purpose of obtaining a bird^s-eye view of the surrounding 

 country, he probably finds during the rainy and cold season, a 

 fine sheet of cultivation, comprising a great variety of cereal, 

 leguminous and oleaginous plants, sown with regularity and 

 spreading round the scattered mud-built villages to a great extent : 

 the fields in full flower look beautiful and give an appearance of 

 prosperity. During the hot season the scene is very difi'erent; 

 few are the traces of vegetation, — an arid plain then stretches 

 around you ; the sun acts so powerfully as to produce fissures 

 and cracks all over the ground. " The surface of the plain pre- 

 sents a monotonous and almost treeless extent of arenaceous 

 waste, bounded by the horizon, and unbroken save by a few 

 rocky elevations that stand forth abruptly from the sheet of 

 black soil like rocks from the ocean." 



" Sir Thomas Munro might well observe that these (the Ceded) 

 districts are more destitute of trees than any part of Scotland he 

 ever saw, and that the traveller scarcely meets with one in twenty 

 miles, and nowhere with a clump of fifty*." 



Since the time of that enlightened governor, much has been 

 done to improve the physical aspect of the country, by the 

 plantation of numerous topes of Bassia latifolia (Mahwa) and 

 avenues of Ficus indica and religiosa (banyan and peepul), which 

 being planted on both sides of the trunk-roads afford a pleasant 

 shade. 



The custom generally is to separate the patches of arable land 

 when dependent on irrigation by low mounds of earth ; when 

 dry by slight fences of dead thorns {Vachellia Farnesiana), or by 

 leaving between them uncultivated strips or spaces from 3 to 

 15 feet wide, sometimes broader (according to the value of the 



* Capt. Newbold in ' Madras Journal of Science,' vol. x. p. 1 13. Since 

 writing the above we have heard of tlie lamented death of this able and 

 distinguished geologist, at a time too when diligently employed in publishing 

 his researches. 



