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and groves retains the water it receives a great deal 

 longer than one devoid of these, is a matter of every- 

 day experience ; and it is certain that widespread and 

 entire failure of crops over enormous areas, such as 

 we have witnessed so often in the last quarter of a 

 century, would have been impossible had cultivation 

 and forest been interlaced throughout them as has 

 been above proposed. There would, no doubt, have 

 been some total failure, and much partial failure, but 

 the intensity of the calamity would, beyond all ques- 

 tion, have been much mitigated, and it is quite an 

 open question whether, in some cases, it would not 

 have been altogether averted. 



Moreover, it is fair to presume that a considerable 

 proportion of the trees planted will be fruit-trees, the 

 mango for instance, which always fruits most heavily 

 in seasons of drought, and which furnishes a very 

 important, and not unwholesome, supply of food to the 

 people, at the most critical period of years of scarcity. 



The enormous increase in the supply of such food 

 that the proposed measure involves would most mate- 

 rially assist the people in tiding over bad seasons on 

 greatly diminished rations of grain. 



And in famines, the death of the cattle is almost as 

 disastrous to the State, from a mere utilitarian point 

 of view, as the death of the men, and for the cattle 

 our forests will provide. The cattle will never starve 

 with these wide plantations everywhere, as there are 

 scores of indigenous trees whose foliage furnishes 

 fairly nutritious fodder, and in seasons of great 

 drought the people would be allowed to make the 

 utmost of every leaf. 



