FOREST MANAGEMENT IN BRITISH INDIA. 259 



We in the United States are fortunate, in that we can learn from the experience and profit 

 from the assiduous work of these careful investigators. While we may never adopt the admirable 

 administrative methods that tit the economic, social, and political conditions of Germany, we shall 

 ever follow them where the recognition and utilization of natural laws lead to the practical 

 acknowledgment of general principles and to desired economic results in forest culture. 



FOREST MANAGEMENT IN BRITISH INDIA. 



Iii order to show how the transfer of German methods may work advantageously, even in a 

 country entirely differently conditioned, the results obtained by the forest management in British 

 India are here briefly stated. 



India, with a total area of nearly 1,500,000 square miles or 636,000,000 acres (an area about 

 one-half that of the United States without Alaska), has a population of about 270,000,000, or four 

 times as great as that of the United States. 



Of the entire area about !)."iO,000 square miles, or <>3 per cent, are under British rule, the 

 remaining 550,000 square miles, with a population of about 53.000,000, being divided among a 

 large number of more or less independent native States. 



Of the entire population about 70 per cent are farmers and farm laborers, who cultivate about 

 200,000,000 acres of land, 30,000,000 of which is irrigated. The greater part of the main peninsula 

 is a high plateau with steep descents to the ocean, both on the western and eastern coast. 



To the north of this plateau is a broad, fertile, river plain extending from the upper Bramah- 

 putra to the mouth of the Indus, a distance of nearly 2,000 miles, without rising more than 900 

 feet above sea level. North of this large and densely settled Indo Gangetic plain, and forming 

 the barrier between India and Thibet, is the great Himalaya Mountain system, drained by the 

 three great river systems of northern India. 



More than half of India lies within the Tropics and over 90 per cent is farther south than New 

 Orleans, the latitude of which is 30. From this it is apparent that the climate is generally hot, 

 but, owing to diversity of elevation and peculiarities of the distribution of rainfall, it is by no 

 means uniform. 



The rains of India depend on extraordinary sea winds, or "monsoons," and their distribution 

 is regulated by the topography of land and the relative position of any districts with regard to 

 the mountains and the vapor-laden air currents. Thus excessive rainfall characterizes the coast 

 line along the Arabian Sea to about latitude 20 N., and still more the coast of Lower Burmah, and 

 to a lesser extent also the delta of the Gauges and the southern slope of the Himalayas. A mod- 

 erately humid climate, if gauged by annual rainfall, prevails over the plateau occupying the large 

 peninsula and the Lower Ganges Valley, while a rainfall of less than 15 inches occurs over the 

 arid regions of the Lower Indus. In keeping with this great diversity of climate, both as to 

 temperature and humidity, there is great variation in the character and development of the forest 

 cover. The natural differences in this forest cover are emphasized by the action of man, who for 

 many centuries has waged war against the forest, clearing it permanently or temporarily for agricul- 

 tural purposes or else merely burning it over to improve grazing facilities or for purposes of the chase. 

 Thus only about 25 per cent of the entire area of India is covered by woods, not over 20 per cent 

 being under cultivation, leaving about 55 per cent either natural desert, waste, or grazing lands. 

 The great forests of India are in Burmah; extensive woods clothe the foothills of the Himalayas 

 and are scattered in smaller bodies throughout the more humid portions of the country, while the 

 dry northwestern territories are practically treeless wastes. In this way large areas of densely 

 settled districts are so completely void of forest that millions of people regularly burn cow dung as 

 fuel, while equally large districts are still impenetrable, wild woods, where, for want of market, it 

 hardly pays to cut even the best of timbers. 



The great mass of forests of India are stocked with hardwoods (i. e., not conifers), which in 

 these tropical countries are largely evergreens, or nearly so, and only a small portion of the forest 

 area is covered by conifers, both pine and cedar, these pine forests being generally restricted to 

 higher altitudes. The hardwoods, most of which in India truly deserve this name, belong to a 

 great variety of plant families, some of the most important being the Leguminosa-, Verbenacea-, 

 Dipterocarpea>, Gombretaceai, Eubiacea.-, Ebenaceaj, Euphorbiacea-, Myrtacea-, and others, and 



