OF FOREST SOILS, &C., IN INDIA. 99 



In such forests in the Wynaad, the soil is a rich black 

 loam ; but elsewhere, where the soil is poor, by nature, and 

 the forest scanty, it may be red, brown or other colours 

 and either stony, gravelly, or rocky, as the case may be. 



In class (2) tropical evergreen forests, fire, as a rule, never 

 enters ; an abundance of leaves are shed annually on the 

 ground ; and yet, strange to say, no humus worth speaking 

 of is to be seen except in hollows, and in the monsoon, the 

 greater portion of the shed leaves will be found to have dis- 

 appeared. The soil, however, is generally rich, and of a 

 dark-brown or black color. In the 3rd class the alpine 

 shola forests the ground will be found covered to a great 

 depth, with the finest humus the forester's ideal covering 

 for the surface of the soil of his forest. The covering which 

 prevents wash, absorbs the rainfall, and retards evaporation. 

 To have the soil of his deciduous forests covered with, a thick 

 layer of humus is a dream of the Indian forester's ; but a 

 dream it will continue to be and nothing else, as I purpose 

 proving further on. 



In Southern India real humus does not exist below 4,000 

 feet. The higher you go above it, the more humus you 

 find ; but above 6,000 feet, the depth of humus is constant. 



Let us enter a shola, say on the Neilgherries, and pro- 

 ceed to examine the surface soil. First we remove a dense 

 covering of leaves, some bright orange and red and quite 

 pliable that have but just fallen, others crisp and yellow 

 that have been there for weeks, and others again, in the 

 layer below that have lain there for months, leaves in which 

 the skeleton is wholly or partly exposed. Then below that 

 layer again, we find a multitude of brittle bits of twigs, the 

 shells of berries and fruit, black with age, seeds that have 

 been bored by insects or emptied by rats and squirrels, 

 particles of decayed leaves, the crumbled cases of empty 

 shells and remnants of insects, long since dead and gone, 

 mixed up with the excretae of a host of earthworms. Below 

 this last stratum, we find a layer of soil, in which it is barely 

 possible to distinguish the fine particles of vegetable origin 



