THE CENTRAL PROVINCES AND OUDH 257 
to alight on any open spot, and hide it with seedling 
growth. There, once settled, the plants die down 
annually to earth level while the root system is 
engaged in seeking to perfect itself by reaching 
permanent moisture, till success is proved by the 
sudden vigorous growth of stems many feet in 
height and of sturdy girth. Then at once begins in 
the even aged groups the struggle towards the 
light ; those individuals that are passed in the race 
remain alive, but quiescent ; the victors spring up to 
rapid maturity, and so, though the groups are of the 
same age, the trees are of varying sizes, the place of 
the larger as they disappear being taken by their 
brethren, just as the gaps formed by the fall of each 
giant of the forest are at once either carpeted with 
eager seedlings, or filled up by plants that have been 
waiting their turn, perhaps, for a generation. 
It may be that there is a better way of treating 
such a forest than by anticipating with the axe the 
selective process of Nature, and it is right that 
experiments should be made in this direction ; for it 
is no doubt inconvenient that regeneration should 
be going on over the whole of a forest area at one 
and the same time, and it is evident that a better 
restriction of the various size-classes to various areas 
would be more business-like. It is in such investiga- 
tions that the interest of Indian forestry asserts 
itself, and such interest is inexhaustible; for we 
have not only a few species to deal with, as in 
Europe, nor have we a forest literature compiled by 
generations of able observers whose attention has 
been concentrated in relatively small areas; nor 
(and this is most important of all) jhad we till 
17 
