CONSERVATORS’ WORK 143 
ful, and he kicks and bites with equal skill and 
ferocity. 
The forests of Bhinga present a curious appear- 
ance to the forester. Thirty years ago the area was 
peopled with ancient trees that rose abruptly from 
a bare soil hardened by the hoofs of numberless 
cattle ; there was no young growth, the parent trees 
were without progeny, and as they fell from natural 
decay their place was filled by a thorny growth, 
impenetrable to man or cattle. It was Nature’s last 
despairing effort to protect the fertility of the soil. 
For a generation the forester fought against fires, 
cattle, and man, and yet there was no response in 
the appearance or in the continuance of seedling 
growth, till later, under the protection of the thorns, 
a few little trees began to show, and, encouraged by 
the admission of light, sprang up to give in their 
turn protection to hundreds of their own kind, to 
assure the tardy regeneration of the former forest, 
and so permit their ancestors to pass away in peace, 
their duty accomplished. To one acquainted with 
the past history of this forest, two questions natu- 
rally presented themselves—whether a whole genera- 
tion was required to rest a tired soil, and whether 
the planting of any other than the existing species 
might have met with success. 
The origin and sequence of tree-growth in 
Northern India is interesting, and may be well 
studied in the rivers flowing from the hills. It takes 
but a small obstruction in the current to form a 
sand-bank that shall just emerge from the lapping 
waters; a stranded tree-trunk from the mountains, 
a boulder displaced from the bank, may lay the 
