CHAPTER II. 



SOWING. 



IN primeval forests which have escaped the 

 influence of the woodman's axe and such are 

 still to be found in the remote recesses of the 

 mountain ranges of India we find trees of all 

 ages, from the seedling of a few years' old to the 

 hoary giant that has braved the storms of centuries. 

 As a general rule, these purely natural forests do 

 not consist of trees of all ages growing pro- 

 miscuously together, but are divided naturally 

 into blocks, in each one of which the trees are 

 of a nearly uniform age. Among the younger 

 groups are sometimes to be found scattered giants 

 of an older growth : these are the trees of a past 

 generation, which have outlived their fellows, and 

 lead to the inference, established by a variety of 

 considerations, that the young forest beneath them 

 is the offspring of an older forest, of which they 

 are the survivors, and doubtless of many past 

 generations of forests. If we now turn our eyes 



