FORESTATION PRACTICE IN NORWAY 91 



are girdled. On poor soil the presence of a moderate amount of hard- 

 wood is beneficial, in that the mouldering leaves add much more fer- 

 tility to the soil than do coniferous needles. Moreover, better protec- 

 tion is given the stand against snow-pressure, frost, and drouth. If 

 the area is to be planted, brush is usually not burned, but left as a par- 

 tial protection against grass-growth, animal injury, and drouth. If the 

 area is to be sown, brush may be laid in strips running northwest to 

 southeast on the level, as a protection against the sun, and along the 

 contours on hilly ground, and strips or plots sown between these brush 

 stretches, or the entire area may be burned broadcast before sowing. 

 The writer discusses at considerable length the question of the desira- 

 bility of burning over areas to be sown. 



Broadcast brush-burning is believed advantageous where the soil is 

 not poor. He points out the splendid pine woods now standing on 

 areas which were burned over by forest fires. An early practice of 

 the Finns, which later was adopted by the Swedes themselves, was the 

 burning over of woodland and sowing rye in the ashes. This custom 

 was kept up generally in Norrland until about the middle of the nine- 

 teenth century, and the writer enters into the details of the practice 

 very fully. On the areas thus burned, grass and shrubs gradually came 

 back, and about lO to 15 years after burning, a young pine and spruce- 

 fir stand of high quality invariably occupied the ground. It has also 

 been observed that stands growing on old charcoal burnings are like- 

 wise excellent. 



Why this advantage in burning? "Ashes contain in soluble form 

 ... all the mineral constituents which the burned plants had taken 

 from the soil, with the exception of nitrogen, and it is therefore a 

 many-sided fertilizer of as high value as many mixed fertilizers for 

 sale on the markets." It is pointed out that hardwood ashes are richer 

 than coniferous wood ashes, both in potash and in phosphorus. 



Burning results in the rapid changing of bulky wood material into 

 plant food without the decade's wait which would be required for its 

 decay. Of course, in the burning, one important food element, nitro- 

 gen, is driven off. Opponents of burning argue that it is wasteful in 

 that it destroys the humus layer. However, the writer believes that, 

 excepting with the most sterile soils, the lo.ss of nitrogen through burn- 

 ing of the humus stratum is of subordinate importance, and ba.scs his 

 l)elief on many areas which he has observed, where plants on burned 

 soil have outstripped in growth neighboring i)lants on unburncd .>^oil. 

 Among others he attributes this in ])art to the neutralizing of the high 

 acid content of raw Ininuis 1)\ thi- lire, .ind states tliat allowins; a out- 



