THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST [December i, 1887. 
whether the forests can stand the drain to which 
they are jiow subjected or not, and Mr. Ozanne 
has rightly drawn our attention to this part of the 
subject which is of such vital importance to the 
rai-cultivator. If, as at present constituted, they 
cannot stand the drain, and if further provision 
cannot be made to extend the loppings over a larger 
area, so as to make the effect less disastrous, the 
situation will be a very awkward one. In that case, 
if things are allowed to slide in the present happy- 
go-lucky manner, the final collapse may be postponed 
indefinitely, hut it must surely come, and the last 
condition of the farmer will be at least as bad as if 
steps had been taken to grapple with the evil now. 
On the other hand, if Government decide that rah 
must be stopped or curtailed in Government land, 
there will be a general howl of indignation from cult- 
ivators — who possibly may, with justice, claim a 
right to rah — egged on by a crowd of professional 
agitators and others not interested in the main- 
tenance of the forests. "What hope, then, is 
there that Government may escape this dil- 
emma? If we turn to the facts .elicited by 
German experimentalists, the prospects of the farmer 
dependent on rah are not encouraging, no matter 
whether the practice be put an end to by Government 
interference or not. As everybody knows, the soii of 
an unrabed forest is yearly enriched by debris of 
branches and leaves which, in decaying, supply a 
quantity of organic and inorganic nutriment to the 
forest. If this litter be removed from a hectare (2£ 
acres) fully stocked with beeoh-trees the soil loses 
annually, on an average, according to Ebermayer's 
experiments, 3,147 kilogrammes of organic and 185 
kilos of inorganic fertilizing matter (a kilogramme 
being equivalent to 2'2 lb. avoirdupois). In forests 
which are rabed when green, the loss is greater, 
because green foliage contains more useful mineral 
nutriment than dead litter ; nothing, of course, is 
done to replace this large quantity of natural manure. 
Setting aside deterioration from physical causes, 
which is very great in forests whose soil is deprived 
of its natural covering of dead leaves and twigs, we 
might almost conclude from Ebermayer's experiments 
that the exhaustion of soils under rah could only be 
a question of time. All farmers know well enough 
that even the best soils are soon exhausted when they 
are steadily deprived of large quantities of nutriment, 
and no manure is substituted to repair the loss; but, 
if this is the case with agricultural soils, it must, a 
fortiori, be the same with forest-soils, which are 
generally much poorer than cultivated land. Stock- 
hardt has submitted the matter to a thoroughly 
practical test by examining two plots of ground, 
side by side, both stocked with Scots pine fifty years 
old, of which one had for some time been deprived 
periodically of its dead litter, and the other had not 
been interfered with in any way. The ground was 
examined to a depth of twenty inches, and the results 
were as follows : — 
The untouched area contained 19,950 kilos per 
hectare of mineral nutriment soluble in muriatic acid, 
and 4,720 kilos of mineral nutriment soluble in water 
The rabed art a contained 14,950 kilos of mineral 
nutriment soluble in the acid, and 2,865 soluble in 
water. A very decided deterioration had, thererore, 
taken place in the supply of mineral nourishment, 
but the loss of organic nutriment was naturally still 
more marled. The protected area was found to 
contain 139,070 kilos of organic matter to tha hectare, 
and, of this quantity, the nitrogen weighed 8,354 
kilos. In the rabed plot, the organic matter amounted 
to 00,438 kilos to the hectare, the nitrogen weighing 
4,759 kilos. The difference in favour of the unci bed 
plot wa«, therefore, 711,232 kilos of organic matter. 
The reader can easily draw his own conclusions from 
these experiments in regard to tlie fate which is in 
stun; for rabed forests which are not of vast extent 
relatively to the area they manure. 
Ouatomary usage in Government forests, which, in 
spite of all legal maxims to the contrary, may easily 
amount to a prescriptive right in the eye of the 
practical legislator, nmy necessitate the continuance 
of abuses, but an abuse which involves the ruin of 
a valuable state-property may perhaps be tolerated, 
but certainly should not be allowed to spread : the 
immediate interests of a few must give way to the 
lasting interests of the many, and, if the evil can- 
not be eradicated, its growth may at least be arrested. 
Systematic experiments would in time show whether 
the area available for rah is sufficient to admit of 
the practice being perpetuated, or if it must sooner 
or later come to an end : in the meantime, haying 
no actual facts to go upon, excepting those obtained 
in foreign countries, we have no mean6 of forming 
a decisive opinion. 
Apart from considerations of rights of usage, it 
appears doubtful if the game is really worth the 
candle. Even to the farmer, supposing him willing 
and able to employ his labour in other ways, the 
advantages are perhaps less than one may easily be 
led to suppose. Mr. Ozanne, who certainly takes a 
most unbiassed view of things, but who, as Director 
of Agriculture, cannot fail to be more interested in 
the welfare of the ryot than in that of the forests, 
frankly confesses that, on the evidence collected by 
himself, rah does not pay. It is only by ignoring the 
wages of the farmer and his family, and the sale value 
of the rah, that a profit is made out. Surely there 
must be something radically wrong in a system of Agri- 
culture, which cannot be made to pay its own way. 
The amount of labour which the farmer must bring 
to bear on the rah system must be very great in pro- 
portion to the effect. Wolff, for instance, calculates 
that 330 hundredweights of dry spray and leaves of 
oak | or beech would yield one hundredweight of 
potash and phosphoric acid, but that the collection 
and carting to destination of this quantity of rah would 
alone cost more than the value of the same quantity 
of artificial manure; of course, this statement is prob- 
ably not applicable to Indian conditions, but it shows 
that enquiry in this direction would not be without 
interest. 
To show to what extent forest trees are able to 
supply the mineral nutriment requisite for agricul- 
tural plants, we may quote the result* of some ex- 
periments. The most important mineral compounds 
of plants are potash, lime, phosphoric aoid, and silica. 
According to Ebermayer, a hectare, cropped with the 
following species, requires these substances in the 
following average quantities per annum for each 
species : — 
1. Potash. 2. Lime. 
Potatoes 120 kilos. Potatoes 37 
Olover 102 „ Clover 112 
Fodder-grass ... 78 „ Fodder-grass ... 49 
Peas 48 „ Peas 47 
Wheat 29 „ Wheat 9 
Beech .-. ... 15 „ Beech 96 
Spruce 9 „ Spruce ... ... 70 
Pine 7 „ Pine 29 
3. Phosphoric Acid. 4. Silica. 
Potatoes 36 Potatoes 8 
Olover 31 Olover 8 
Fodder-grass ... 24 Fodder-grass ... 80 
Peas 21 Peas 9 
Wheat 21 Wheat 97 
Beech 13 Beech 63 
Spruce 8 Spruce 58 
Pine 5 Pine ... ' 
According to this statement, it would require about 
three acres of well-stocked beech forest at its best 
(t, e., before deterioration by rah had set in) to pro- 
vide sufficient mineral nutriment for one acre of wheat ; 
beech, be it noted, being a tree which yields rela- 
tively to most other species, a large quantity of nut- 
riment, and only grows in comparatively good soils 
It would require comparative experiments on Indian 
forests and cereals, similar to those we have referred 
to, to enable us to say >oughly what quantity of 
forest of any given description is, on an average, 
capable of fertilizing an acre of land under costlier 
conditions, and to what extent rah affects the growth 
of forests. It is hopeless to expect to arrive at any 
satisfactory conclusion until these data are worked 
out, for, although the results obtained in German 
