NOTES ON FORESTRY. 



CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTION. 



THE primeval forests, once occupying we know 

 not now how much of the vast peninsula of India, 

 have, in the ordinary course of cause and sequence, 

 gone down before the spread of a civilisation sup- 

 posed to have extended over nearly four thousand 

 years, to make room for an industrious and increas- 

 ing population. 



This has ever been the fate of forests in all 

 civilised countries ; but in the harder North there 

 has always been a stage in which civilised com- 

 munities, animated by the need of warmth and 

 shelter, have interposed checks to further inroads 

 on forest area. Local climatic conditions have 

 rendered these influences to a great extent dormant 

 in India. There was little need for fuel in a 

 country in which the sun gave more than warmth 



