40 Forestry Quarterly. 



was $0.25 ''\ The total expense was $3,250; the cost per acre 

 only $1.80. t 



Just two clays before my visit to St. Martin, the Palatinate was 

 swept with one of the heaviest rain storms since the year 1905 

 and although the trenches were filled with water and sand, there 

 was no damage done to the fields or the village itself. During 

 my stay there, men were emptying these ditches and piling the 

 sand on their edges and the lower sides, so that within a few days 

 after the storm the trenches were again in condition to protect 

 the property of the peasants below. 



Some few of the private owners neglected to construct trenches 

 upon their forest-lands because of the expense and they claimed 

 that the trenches would encumber the gathering of the forest 

 litter. The peasants had offered the same objection but now 

 find that the forest litter has the tendency to collect in the ditches 

 and this in no way encumbers the raking up of the litter, in 

 fact, it facilitates the work. 



Since the trenches have been constructed, the soil cover has 

 again reappeared and a fair turf and huckleberry growth now 

 covers the soil under the open pine stands of the steep slopes. 

 This living vegetable cover will soon supply vegetable-mold and 

 together they will prevent the rapid downward rush of the sur- 

 face water and in doing so give the humus and the soil time t(? 

 absorb a larger amount of the same. If the litter would not be 

 collected, there would be but little need of trenches after the for- 

 est floor is again fully established. 



Although I examined the diameter increment of a number of 

 trees by the aid of a Swedish increment borer, with the expecta- 

 tion of finding an increase in the width of the annual rings, no 

 marked difference could be detected, in fact, occasionally there 

 was none at all. Yet I believe that an increase in increment must 

 result from the greater amount of moisture which the ditches 

 make available for the roots, even though the grass and huckle- 

 berry growth may use a large part of it. 



*An average of 300 running feet per man. per day — undoubtedly a 

 working day of 10-12 hours. 



t This is the average cost per acre considering the whole area of the 

 slopes. Although only 460 acres are traversed with ditches (average= 

 3,300 — 3,400 ft. per acre) this is the more correct way to find the average 

 cost per acre as the surface water of the 1800 acres is controlled by these 

 trenches. 



