Reddit mentions of Great Hedge of India: The Search for the Living Barrier That Divided a People

Salt is a necessary nutrient. Without it, you will die. Most of us get enough salt in their food, and don't need to add any.

In the interior of India, however, there is no salt in the soil, so plants don't supply it, and it IS necessary to supplement the diet with it. For that reason, there was a regular trade in salt from the coastal areas to the interior.

Enter the British Raj, which put a tax on salt. Thanks to the cost+tax of salt, Indian farm familes would spend as much as 1/3 of their monetary income for salt.

That high tax caused a trade in tax-evaded salt being smuggled to the inland. To stop or slow the smugglers, the British planted a hedge around the interior.

It's the subject of an extremely fascinating book. The hedge was virtually forgotten, and most of it has been replanted, or covered with roads, etc. The author spent an obsessive amount of time to retrace the hedge, which was the longest in the world. He eventually found some of it thanks to an elderly monk who was a highway robber before he spent a long time in prison.

FWIW, there are some unbelievably long "forest strips" in Russia, which aren't that different -- just bigger.

EDIT: Wow, thanks for all the upvotes, everybody.

To add a bit to the story, it's interesting how the author "discovers" the hedge while working as a curator of historic records in London. He just stumbles across a paragraph in some report that merely mentions that the hedge is coming along quite nicely. He then expands that atom of information, hardly a sentence -- into a fascinating book that touches on British Imperial policy in general as well as India, the physiology of our need for salt, and what happens when we don't get enough; he gives examples of salt taxation in various historical episodes, and gets into the history and culture of India, past and present. It's one of the most fascinating and readable books I've read in the last 20 years, and it's inspiring as well, because it shows the rewards of pursuing your curiosities.

Here's a website with more detailed information

There are historians who believe they can prove that the holocaust didn't happen either. Doesn't make that claim any less silly.

This [book] (https://www.amazon.com/Great-Hedge-India-Barrier-Divided/dp/0786708409) is just one example of how those deaths attributed to 'illness' were a direct consequence of greedy policies imposed by a foreign bureaucracy intent on milking maximum wealth from its occupied lands.

• It is an essential mineral that must be constantly replentished.
  
• Most western diets get enough without adding any to food.
  
• There is no craving when there is a deficiency in the diet.
  
• When the British controlled India, they placed such a high tax on salt, the typical peasant spend 1/3 to 1/2 of his income on salt. There is no salt in the soil in the interior of India, and it has to be imported. The British planted the longest hedge in the world to slow down smuggling.
  
  
  Source: The Great Hedge of India. An absolutely mind bending book for several reasons.