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lage herds. In India, wherever you have a closed 

 grove of trees, there spontaneously you have a luxu- 

 riant growth of herbage, and at the end of April, even 

 in the hottest and driest parts of Upper India, where 

 the whole country round is as bare as any desert, you 

 will find in preserved groves (such as the more wealthy 

 zemindars often keep for their own cattle and in view 

 to the sale of the grass in neighbouring towns) a mass 

 of hay above and green grass below, that is perfectly 

 astounding. 



This is due partly to the rich humus, the result of 

 the decay for many years of fallen twigs and leaves, 

 and partly to the diminished evaporation from the soil 

 protected by the trees. 



But with this improved provision of fodder we 

 obtain simultaneously an improved supply of fuel, and 

 an immediate great diminution in the consumption of 

 manure as such. Very few natives will cook with cow- 

 dung cakes if they can procure sticks, and it is chiefly 

 for cooking^' purposes that fuel is required in India. 

 Moreover, in the wood ashes we have a new useful 

 source of manure. 



Two main questions would have to be considered : — 

 First, how the land is to be obtained ; second, how it 

 is to be planted. 



For the first, legislation would be required. Re- 

 course to the Act would not be necessary in all cases ; 



* Doubtless chiefly for cooking, but there is a vast consumption 

 in brick-making, and here the P. W. B. are great sinners. The 

 increase of brick-making, and with it, the consumption of dung 

 as fuel (it being, in most places, cheaper than wood), has been 

 enormous of late years. 



