4 NOTES ON FORESTRY. 



practice of female infanticide, tended to a rapid 

 increase of population ; and side by side with the 

 inroads now being made on the forests for their 

 products, came a demand for the land for cultiva- 

 tion. English rulers, bred in the traditions of a 

 country in which coal and iron were the chief 

 factors of material progress, instead of regarding 

 with dismay the threatened extinction of the 

 forests in the face of a growing demand for 

 timber, hailed the spread of cultivation with 

 unmingled feelings of self-congratulation, and 

 vied with each other in "converting the forest 

 into smiling cornfields." 



This destruction of forest area, keeping pace 

 with a rapidly-growing demand for timber, soon 

 directed attention to the mountain ranges of 

 the country, in which the unsuitableness of the 

 soil for cultivation had hitherto secured its 

 maintenance as forest. The outer and more 

 accessible ranges came first under tribute ; large 

 areas were laid bare by contractors, who had no 

 thought of providing for reproduction ; and the 

 soil which had accumulated under ages of forest 

 shade went down the steep hillsides before the 

 monsoon rains, leaving only the bare rock, from 

 the crevices of which had sprung up a sparse 

 and stunted vegetation, in place of the whilom 

 noble forest. Farther and deeper into the ranges 



