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Rural School Leaflet. 



THE FOREST SOIL 

 Herbert A. Smith 



In February we learned something about the battle of the trees. If 

 we took our lesson in the leafless woods, we saw how the competition 

 of the trees for space and light causes long, clean trunks — the form most 

 useful to man — at the same time that it produces trees fitted to different 

 natural conditions. But a forest is more than a group of trees contending 

 with each other which shall live to old age. It is a true community or 

 plant society. Just as in any town there is both business competition 



among individuals and a 

 joint contribution to what 

 we may call the life of the 

 town, from which in turn 

 each individual profits, so 

 there is a life of the forest, 

 to which each tree con- 

 tributes and by which each 

 benefits. 



This is most strikingly 

 evidenced in the conditions 

 favorable to the develop- 

 ment of the young forest 

 which the tree community 

 creates. Some kinds of tree 

 seedlings can root them- 

 selves and grow up in the 

 open, if the climate is not 

 too adverse, but the true 

 home of the little tree is 

 within the protection of the 

 forest, where the ground is 

 soft and rich, the full in- 

 tensity of the sunlight is 

 tempered, the force of the 

 wind is broken, and the 

 extremes of heat and cold 

 are mitigated. These con- 

 ditions favor the health of the old trees as well as the young. The 

 mutual protection, for example, which the full-grown trees give against 

 violent winds is of great importance. When the forester plans to cut 

 a part of the forest crop he must give careful thought to the question 



Fig. 107. — A forest is more than a group of 

 trees contending with each other which shall 

 live to old age 



