LIGNUM 8AMALI. GOl 



monopoly has been maintained to the present day. The Mysore 

 annual exports of sandal wood are about 700 tons, valued at £27,000.^ 

 They are shipped from Mangalore. 



A similar monopoly existed in the Madras Presidency until a few 

 years ago, when it was abandoned. But sandal wood is still a source 

 of revenue to the Madras Government, which by the systematic 

 management of the Forest Department has of late years been regularly 

 increasing. The quantity of sandal wood felled in the Reserved 

 Forests during the year 1872-3 was returned as 15,329 maunds (547A 

 tons).- 



The sandal- wood tree, which is indigenous to the regions just men- 

 tioned, used to be reproduced by seeds sown spontaneously or by birds ; 

 but it is now being raised in regular plantations, the seeds being sown 

 two or three in a hole with a chili {Capsicum) seed, the latter producing 

 a quick-growing seedling which shades the sandal while young.' It is 

 jirobable that the nurse-plant affords susteruince, for it has been 

 shown* that Santahuii is para-sitic, its roots attaching themselves by 

 tuber-like processes to those of many other plants ; and it is also said 

 that young sandal plants thrive best when grass is allowed to grow up 

 in the seed-beds. 



The trees attain their prime in 20 to 30 yeai-s, and have then 

 trunks as much as a foot in diameter. A tree having been felled, the 

 branches are lopped off, and the trunk allowed to lie on the ground for 

 several months, during which time the white ants eat away the greater 

 part of the inodorous sap^ood. The trunk is then roughly trimmed, 

 sawn into billets 2 to 2| feet long, and taken to the forest depots. 

 There the wood is weighed, subjected to a second and more careful 

 trimming, and classified according to quality. In some parts it is 

 customary not to fell but to dig the tree up; in others the root is dug up 

 after the trunk has been cut down, — the root affording valuable wood, 

 which with the chips and sawdust are preserved for distillation, or 

 for burning in the native temples. The sap wood and branches are 

 worthless.^ 



In 1863 a sort of sandal wood afforded by Fusanus spicatus (p. 599) 

 was one of the chief exports of AN'estern Australia, whence it was 

 shipped to China. A trifling payment for peimission to cut gi'owing 

 timber of any kind was the only barrier placed on the felling of the 

 trees. The fanners employed their teams during the dull season in 

 bringing to Perth or Guildford the logs of sandal which had been felled 

 and trimmed in the bush; and there was a flourishing trade so lonor as 

 trees of a fair size could be obtained within 100 or even 150 miles of 

 the towns, where the commodity was worth £6 to £6 10s. per ton. But 

 the ill-regulated and improvident destniction of the trees in the more 

 easily accessible districts has so reduced their numbers that the trade 



^ B. H. Baden Powell, Beport on the * Scott in Journ. of Agricult. and Uorti- 



Adminktration of the Forest Department in cult. Soc. of India, Calcutta, vol. ii. part 1 



the several provinces under the Government of (1871) 287. 



India, 1872-73, Calcutta, 1874. vol. i. 27. * Elliot, Experiences qf a Planter in the 



^Beport of the Administration of the Jungles of Mysore, ii (1871) 237; also 



Madras Presidency during the year 1872-73, verbal information communicated by Capt. 



Madras, 1874. 18. 143. Campbell Walker, Deputy Conservator of 



* Beddome, Flora Sylvatica for Southern For^ts, Madras. 

 India, 1872. 256. 



