MIXED CHOP OP XTNIFCBM AGT5. 43 



erode the soil, or bring in a deposit of silt, species producing suck- 

 ers will ordinarily not only maintain theniselves, but even 

 increase their own proportion in the crop, arid tWs the more easily, 

 the rrjore destrijctive, within certain limits, the floods, are. 



In the conditions of the First Case the saturation of the soil by 

 floods with saline substances was of slight or no importance in the 

 mutual struggle for existence. Here this circumstance acquires 

 its fullest sigii|cance, for whereas sorne species may be killed out- 

 right by the introduction of such substances, others may thrive as 

 as well as before, while a third class will sufPer various degrees 

 of cheel^ in their growth. Thus babul is almost the only species 

 that can flourish in rel^ soil. In the Kheri Trans-Sarda fprests in 

 Oudh, floods qf the adjoining Soheli river have recently killed out 

 all the khair in the fire-protected low-lying block near Dudhua, 

 while young sissu are coming up in the newly deposited silt. Be- 

 fore fire-cpnservancy was introd:^ed, the grass was all burnt in 

 the hot weather, and, in the absence of any obstacles, thp annual 

 inundations quickly subsided without impregnating it with salts 

 to a suflBpient extent to kill out the khair, 



(f) Action of n%an. — :A11 previous remarks on this head, except 

 what is purely referable to a rnere difference of ages, have a much 

 wider application here, for there is much more room for selection 

 in a mixed than in a pure forest, and the action of man in the for- 

 mer must, on that account, have a considerably rtjore far-reaching 

 as well as intensive influence. Before the introduction of conser- 

 vancy, teak was cut in the Central Provinces for the meq,nest uses, 

 and, except for fuel and for a few other special purposes, there was 

 no demand for any other species. In the interior of the Himala- 

 yas, deodar is, up to the present, the only tree removed on any con- 

 siderable scale. Centuries of dhaya have given an easy predomi- 

 nance to teak over large areas in Central India. In fact the 

 action of man, steadily directed with a single unswerving purpose, 

 may controvert the laws of nature to the utmost point tq which they 

 may be defied. Indirect consequences of his action are also 

 manifest in forests, as for iiistance, the injurious effects qf sulphflr- 

 ous fumes einitted fron^ neighbouring smelting furnaces. 



The extent tq which a species c^n resist injuries resulting from 

 felling, conversion aqd export operations will depend — 



(i) On its faculty of shooting up again from the cqllum of the 

 root, or qf throwing up suckers ; 



(ii) On the firmness and strength of its roots ; 



(iii) On the strength and elasticity qf the trunk and branches \ 



