326 India. 



facilities or for purposes of the chase. Thus as we 

 have seen, only about 24 or 25 percent of the entire 

 area of India is covered by woodland, not over 20 

 percent being under cultivation, leaving about 55 per- 

 cent either natural desert, waste, or grazing lands. 

 The great forests of India are in Burma; extensive, 

 woods clothe the foothills of the Himalayas and are 

 scattered in smaller bodies throughout the more humid 

 portions of the country, while the dry northwestern 

 territories are practically treeless wastes. Large 

 areas of densely settled districts are so completely void 

 of forest that millions of people regularly burn cow 

 dung as fuel, while equally large districts are still 

 impenetrable, wild woods, where, for want of market, 

 it hardly pays to cut even the best of timbers. 



The great mass of forests in India are stocked with 

 hardwoods, which in these tropical countries are 

 largely evergreens, or nearly so, although the large 

 areas of dry forest are deciduous by seasons; only a 

 small portion of the forest area is covered by conifers, 

 both pine and cedar, these pine forests being generally 

 restricted to higher altitudes. The hardwoods, most 

 of which in India truly deserve this name, belong to a 

 great variety of plant families, some of the most im- 

 portant being the Leguminosse, Verbenacese, Diptero- 

 carpese, Combretacese, Rubiacese, Ebenacese, Euphor- 

 biacese, Myrtacese, and others, and a relatively small 

 portion represented by Cupuliferae and other families 

 familiar to us. The most important, valuable species 

 are Teak, Sal, and Deodar. 



In the greater part of India the hardwood forest 

 consists not of a few species, as with us, but is made up 



