Statistics, except of government properties, are somewhat doubtful. Apparently, the forested area of the whole of India comprises somewhat over 40 per cent. of the land area. The government forests, settled and unsettled, represent at present about 24 per cent. of the area under British rule (149 million acres), not over 20 per cent. being under cultivation, leaving about 56 per cent. either natural desert, waste, or grazing lands. The great forests of India are in Burma; extensive woods clothe the foothills of the Himalayas and are scattered in smaller bodies throughout the more humid portions of the country, while the dry northwestern territories are practically treeless wastes. Large areas of densely settled districts are so completely void of forest that millions of people regularly burn cow dung as fuel, while equally large districts are still impenetrable, wild woods, where, for want of market, it hardly pays to cut even the best of timbers. The great mass of forests in India are stocked with hardwoods, which in these tropical countries are largely evergreen, or nearly so, although the large areas of dry forest are deciduous by seasons; only a small portion of the forest area is covered by conifers, both pine and cedar, these pine forests being generally restricted to higher altitudes in the Himalayas. The hardwoods, most of which in India truly deserve this name, belong to a great variety of plant families, some of the most important being the Leguminosæ, Verbenaceæ, Dipterocarpeæ, Combretaceæ, Rubiaceæ, Ebenaceæ, Euphorbiaceæ, Myrtaceæ, and others, and a relatively small portion represented by Cupuliferæ and other families familiar to us. The most important, valuable species are Teak, Sal, and Deodar.