306 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA 



economic value. At present these forests have scarcely 

 been drawn on for the supply of timber, being distant 

 from the Narbada some thirty or forty miles, without a 

 road capable of conveying heavy timber. I have already 

 remarked on the appearance of the sal tree. Singly it is 

 a little formal in outHne, though possessing a fine aspect 

 from its horizontal branching, bright evergreen leaves 

 like broad lanceheads, and straight, tapering stem covered 

 with gray and deeply fissured bark. Its great charm, how- 

 ever, resides in the fresh, cool aspect of the masses and 

 belts in which it chiefly grows. 



Besides the dammer resin of the sal, several other kinds 

 of minor forest produce are collected here, as in other 

 tracts, for sale to the traders of the plains. Some of these 

 have already been mentioned. Another is the stick-lac of 

 commerce, which is deposited by an insect on the smaller 

 twigs of several species of trees, among which Butea 

 frondosa, Schleichera trij'u^a, and Zizyfhus jujuha are the 

 principal. The twigs are broken ofi, and sold as they 

 stand, looking hke pieces of very dark red coral. About 

 twenty pounds will be procured annually from a tree, so 

 long as any of the insects are left on it to breed. But just as 

 often as not the improvident wild man will cut down the 

 whole tree to save himself the trouble of climbing. The 

 inborn destructiveness of these jungle people to trees is 

 certainly very extraordinary; even where it is clearly 

 against their own interest, they cannot apparently refrain 

 from doing wanton injury. A Gond or Byga passing 

 along a pathway will almost certainly, and apparently 

 unconsciously, drop his axe from the shoulder on any 

 young sapling that may be growing by its side, and almost 

 everywhere young trees so situated will be found cut half 

 through in this manner. The stick-lac is manufactured 

 into dye in considerable quantities at a factory in Jubbul- 

 piir, whose agents penetrate the remotest corners of these 

 jungles in search of the raw material. 



The cocoons of the wild tusser silk-moth are also collected 

 in great numbers for sale to the caste of silk-spinners who 

 live by this business in the villages of the plains. Experience 

 has shown that these moths will not breed a second genera- 



