Mr Barber, Parasitic Trees in Southern India. 247 
may extend to Rs. 200.” This sum is a very large one in the eyes 
of the native cultivator. In more barbarous times the penalty was 
frequently “a limb for a limb,” a leg or arm being cut off for 
wounding sandal trees, and on repeated offences the head being 
removed. 
This state monopoly brings in something like £50,000 a year. 
The machinery for collecting the wood is very simple. The country 
is divided up into districts with so-called “depots” at intervals. 
The dead trees (equally valuable with the living from the oil- 
producing point of view) are collected each year, until a certain 
specified quantity has been brought together, the rest being allowed 
to lie till the following year. The logs are pared of young wood 
and the cleaned heartwood is cut into billets of various sizes, and 
these are classified according to a complicated terminology. Annual 
auctions are held in the depots, when buyers come from all parts 
of India. 
During the past 30 years continued efforts have been made to 
increase the natural forests of sandal by artificial plantations. 
These have, as a ride, been unsuccessful, but have incidentally led 
to a more careful study of the plant. Under suitable conditions 
of soil and temperature, rainfall and elevation, the sandal has been 
found to succeed best when planted with certain other plants 
which have earned the name of “nurses.” The relations between 
the sandal and its nurse have been exhaustively discussed. It has 
usually been assumed that the shading of the soil and lower parts 
of the stem by the nurse was of advantage, while it was found 
that the plant did not thrive unless its head was free in the sun. 
This would of course be expected when considering its usual 
habitat — the outskirts of forests, scattered through low scrub or in 
hedges. The seeds are heavy and are scattered by birds in thickets, 
and the young plants, unless growing under cover, are greedily 
eaten by deer and cattle. The general results of this study of 
nurses have been summarised by one of the principal forest officers 
as follows: “Sandal should not be planted pure, but with some 
good shade-giving species, (1) because it is a shade-lover and a 
lover of more shade than is given by its own foliage, (2) it 
flourishes best in a vegetable soil which its own foliage is not 
capable of producing, (3) it requires shelter when young, and 
(4) there is the doubtful question of root parasitism.” This latter 
clause is one of the few references to the parasitic nature of the 
sandal in the forest literature of the subject. 
Where the neighbouring vegetation has died out and the sandal 
is left standing, it frequently becomes unhealthy and, after linger- 
ing for a time, also dies. It is usual then to deplore the absence 
of lateral shade and to speak of “sun-scorch.” But all these facts 
are readily explained by the knowledge that the tree is a root- 
