INTRODUCTION 5 
as the North-East and South-West Monsoons; in ; 
some parts of the country the former is most im- 
portant, in others the latter, but in both cases not 
only is the amount of precipitation of vital im- 
portance, but also the time of its delivery. Hither 
a delay in the rainfall or its unseasonable occurrence 
may, by preventing ploughing or the ripening of the 
harvest, cause widespread disaster amongst a people 
who have few resources at their disposal when their 
food-supply fails, and thus it is that the question of 
the storage of water and of the regulation of its off- / 
flow becomes of vital importance. ~ Much has doubt- 
less been done by the construction of tanks, wells 
and canals to hold up the water on the surface of 
the ground or to utilize the subterranean moisture, 
and such works are indeed a marked feature of the 
winter landscape in India; yet it is to the forests 
that we must look for wider results in restraining 
the surface flow after heavy rain; it is by their 
agency that the water level is maintained at such a 
height that it can be reached by the primitive 
methods of the Hast; that the springs are kept 
supplied ; and that perennial streams may be made 
to flow in the place of those watercourses trickling 
through dreary beds of sand, that would hardly be 
suspected of becoming later on in the summer 
turbulent and muddy torrents, often carrying devas- 
tation instead of blessing. / 
When it is once recognized that the forests of 
India are more important in their effect on the 
general welfare of the people than merely by reason 
of the material they supply to the industries of the 
West, they will assume quite a different aspect t 
