FOREST FIRES. 225 



size, they seem, as a rule, to become almost fireproof ; for 

 notwitlistaiuliiig the aimiial burning of dry grass and brush- 

 wood on the mountain-sides, you seldom or never see those 

 tracts of charred and withered thnber-skelctons so constant- 

 ly met with in the American backwoods. I therefore very 

 much doubt whether burning the undergrowth is here so 

 prejudicial as is generally supposed. In the forests of " sal " 

 and other hardwood trees of the Terai and Dehra Doon, the 

 ravages of white ants, especially where the undergrowth is 

 left unburnt, are, I am sure, more injurious to well-grown 

 trees than is the slight scorching of their outer bark by fire. 

 Moreover, the fire to a great extent arrests the progress of 

 destruction by the ants, and the clearance of useless scrub- 

 jungle by burning gives freedom for the better development 

 of the more matured timber. The exclusion of the natives, 

 too, from the forests, in which, since the time when nature 

 first planted the trees there, they have had the privilege of 

 grazing their herds, has caused an amount of discontent, not 

 to say distress, with which the doubtful advantage of such 

 a proceeding is hardly commensurate. To this may be added 

 the increase of malaria caused by the rank vegetation being 

 left to rot on the ground from year to year. By all means 

 protect the saplings up to a certain age ; but would it not 

 be better, after the timber has reached a fair size, that the 

 villagers should be permitted to burn the undergrowth in 

 order to provide fresh young fodder for grazing their herds 

 on as heretofore ? The manure from the ashes and cattle 

 ordure, and the clearance of the undergrowth, would tend 

 to improve the trees, which would then be tall and strong 

 enough to resist the ravages of the fire, though not those of 

 the white ants, which would be decreased by it. In order 

 to justify my idea, let me remark that I can remember the 

 time when, notwithstanding the annual conflagrations and 

 the grazing of cattle in the forests, the hardwood timber of 

 Dehra Doon was of as fine a size and quality as it is ever 

 likely to be again with any amount of conserving. I know 



p 



