SOIL AND CLIMATE. 3! 



our Coffee in an imitation of its native jungles. 

 In fact, trees are of the first importance to regulate 

 the climate of a country. 



Lieut.-Col. Beddome, in his Report to the 

 Famine Commissioners, gives a striking instance of 

 the damage indiscriminate felling of forests works to 

 a district, and we can fully corroborate his remarks, 

 knowing the Mettapolliem gorge well : 



" The clearing away of forests protecting a spring or 

 head of a stream almost always dries it up, and the 

 denudation of the forests protecting the slopes of ravines 

 down which it runs seriously affects it, causing a great 

 rush of water after heavy rain and corresponding diminution 

 at other times. These facts are too patent to require proof, 

 but can be established by most forest officers. To illustrate 

 the ill effects of deforesting steep mountain ravines I could 

 mention nothing more appropriate than the Coonoor ghat 

 ravine, the approach to the Nilgiri from Mettapolliem. I 

 have been up and down this many times nearly every year 

 since 1857, and watched the gradual destruction of the 

 forest, trying hard to stop it, but with what result is very 

 evident, although Government have passed several orders 

 forbidding the clearance of the forests. When I first knew 

 it the ravine was all forest-clad, both sides, and in the 

 heaviest rain there was no very apparent wash of the soil, 

 no land slips or rolling boulders, and the rivulets feeding 

 the river down the centre of the ravine all running 

 tolerably clear. Now the north-east slopes or the slopes 

 above the road have been almost entirely deforested, and 

 it is quite dangerous to go up the ghat during very heavy 

 rain, which often occurs in October, November, and the 

 beginning of December, and sometimes in May. Boulders 

 of rock of various sizes, from several cwts. to 100 tons, 

 come rolling down, rendering the old and new ghats 

 impassable and destroying the bridges, and the soil in 



