FORESTS AND THEIR USES. 9 



districts. Sir Richard Temple, reporting to the 

 Government, in consequence of the famine of 1877, 

 laments the continued destruction of forests. "In the 

 midst of cultivated tracts there are to be seen bare 

 sterile hill-sides, said to have been forest-clad within 

 living memory. In such localities the climate is sup- 

 posed to have changed for the worst. Beyond the 

 Ghat Mountains, in Bellary and Kurnool, the treeless, 

 shrubless aspect of the country is as wonderful as it is 

 melancholy. These are the very districts where famine 

 has been occasionally epidemic, and where scarcity 

 has been almost endemic. Any thoughtful spectator 

 must perceive that, according to all meteorological ex- 

 perience, and to the almost certain teaching of proved 

 facts, these fine districts were not destined by nature 

 to be the prey and sport of famine and scarcity, but 

 have been rendered subject to these calamities by the 

 thoughtless action of man." 



Not only does the destruction of forests alter the 

 climate, ' diminish permanent springs, render inunda- 

 tions common, but it consequently reduces productive 

 cultivation, and is the forerunner of scarcity and 

 famine. These are not, by any means, all the disasters 

 which may be traced to this source. Numerous 

 instances are recorded in the Government records in 

 support of the theory that cholera, one of the greatest 

 scourges of the East, increases as trees diminish. 

 The road to Sambalpoor runs for sixty or seventy 

 miles through forest, sometimes very dense; never- 

 theless, on this route, traversed daily by hundreds of 

 travellers, vehicles, and baggage trains, cholera rarely 

 appears, and when it does appear it is of a mild form. 



