MIXED CROP OP UNIFORM AGE. 69 



minalla tonwntosa, unless it finds moisture enough to germinate at 

 the beginning of the very first rainy season, at once roots and dries 

 up. Oily seeds soon go bad, as the oil is easily oxidised: e.g. seeds 

 of deodar and most other conifers, of Artocarpus, Bassla, &c. Small 

 seeds, like those of Anogeissus, Stephegyne, Adina, &c., are killed 

 in numbers simply by the heat of the sun during the hot weather, 

 and but for that circumstance, these species would easily overrun, 

 as the two Anogelssus actually often do, the whole forest wherever 

 they grow. As regards the Anogelssus pendula, however, water 

 seems to exercise a strongly preservative effect on its seeds, which, 

 as already mentioned above, are carried down by river more than 

 150 miles, to ultimately germinate where it is deposited. This pe- 

 culiarity is also well illustrated by the production of new forests of 

 sissu, khair, tamarisk, and babul. For the most remarkable in- 

 stances of vitality, however, we must go to the grass family. 



(/) Relative facility of germination. This condition has a 

 most marked effect on the reproduction of the various species com- 

 posing a crop. Thus in sal forest, there is every year a more or 

 less plentiful new crop of seedlings of that species produced, where- 

 as, save in exceptional years and places, yearlings of the allied 

 species are either wanting or are entirely in the minority. This is 

 due to the sal seed germinating as soon as it falls, and sometimes 

 beginning to do so even before it is shed, while that of its com- 

 panions, although many of them are annually fertile, germinate 

 with much less facility. Similary, in the N. W. Himalayas, the 

 acorn of Quercus semecarpifolia frequently develops a long taproot 

 before it falls soon after ripening at the beginning of the rains. 

 Teak, in spite of its profuse and generally annual seeding, never- 

 theless, as a rule, produces every year only a very small number of 

 seedlings, owing not only to the early fall of its seeds, but, 

 throughout India proper, chiefly to the excessive difficulty with 

 which it germinates, having often, under the most favourable cir- 

 cumstances, to lie in the soil for upwards of two years. There are 

 other species, the actual germinative process of which spreads over 

 several days, so that when once that process has begun, if a sudden 

 long break in the rains intervened, and the soil dried up at the 

 surface under a hot sun, it must be immediately arrested and the 

 germ killed. Such species are Terminalia tomentosa, Gmellna ar- 

 borea, &c. Again, the same class of seeds, for the very reason 

 that their germination is protracted, are also often liable to rot 

 from temporary excess of moisture and consequent inability to ob- 

 tain the full quantum of oxygen necessary to render the reserve 



