70 HAPPY INDIA 



branches and leaves, and shoots and seedlings, and 

 not only that, but when they are short of fodder 

 they tear up the grass by the roots. 



During the last forty years the Indian Govern- 

 ment has made great efforts to protect the existing 

 forests from destruction, and they are now managed 

 with a great deal of care and science, so that their 

 destruction has been stopped and some little afforesta- 

 tion has taken place, but not much, because 

 afforestation means expenditure, and the Indian 

 Government has no money to spend on this work, 

 as already explained. The Indian Forester is a 

 monthly journal published in Calcutta. In that 

 journal for August 1921, page 337, Mr. Trowscoed 

 refers to the destruction of forests in Cyprus, Greece, 

 Palestine, North Africa, and also in India. He 

 says, speaking of North- Western India : " The forests 

 where the Emperor Baber hunted the rhinoceros 

 are now a waterless tangle of ravines," " the beautiful 

 country along the Foot Hills is now buried under 

 sand and gravel." Kumaun has been made dry 

 "by a race sunk in abysmal ignorance ; with fire 

 and axe they devastated their own land." The 

 injury that has been done to many countries by the 

 destruction of forests is now a commonplace, and 

 there is no doubt that it is true that great injury 

 has been done which might be repaired by afforestation. 

 At the same time it is well to bear in mind that 

 there is another view of the case. Mr. Elsworth 

 Huntingdon, formerly Professor of Geography at 

 the Yale University, says that a great deal of the 



