THE CENTRAL PROVINCES AND OUDH 249 
more men, then will follow restrictions in the areas 
open to the wanderer, and the prosperity of civiliza- 
tion will, doubtless, take the place of the content 
due to the infinitely small requirements of the 
jungle people. 
The forests have suffered in the past from frosts 
and from fires. The former evil can only be miti- 
gated by the encouragement of a healthy stock, and 
care against unduly opening it out. The latter has 
been overcome by the personal influence and efforts 
of the Forest Officers, and in response thereto the 
hills are thickly covered with a regrowth of “sél i 
trees that is almost visibly improving the soil by 
means of the protection offered against sun and 
rain—at least, where the grazing of cattle can be 
regulated or excluded. The interesting question 
now sometimes arises, how this existing stock may 
be harvested so as to make way for the improved 
crop of the future, and the reply remains dependent 
on the demand that exists for the material of the 
fellings. It cannot all be sold, for there is no use 
for it; even the alternative of giving it away does 
not provide sufficient inducement to anyone to 
undertake the expense of removal ; and soit happens 
that in places the forester may have to wait for 
progress because he is ahead of his market, consoling 
himself with the knowledge that if in the East he 
happened to be behind it he would have found even 
greater difficulty, and have, perhaps, encountered 
the risk of having to retire from a position that he 
was not able remuneratively to fill. There is as 
yet, however, no land pressure in the Central 
Provinces ; hundreds of square miles of forest lie 
