380 REMOVAL OF LEAVES. 
wind-fallen branches as fuel. By long usage, sometimes by 
express grant, this privilege has become a vested right of the 
population in the neighborhood of many public and even large 
private forests; but it is generally regarded as a serious evil. 
To remove the leaves and fallen twigs is to withdraw much of 
the pabulum upon which the tree was destined to feed. The 
small branches and leaves are the parts of the tree which yield 
the largest proportion of ashes on combustion, and of course 
they supply a great amount of nutriment for the young shoots. 
“A cubic foot of twigs,” says Vaupell, “yields four times as 
much ashes as a cubic foot of stem wood. . . For every 
hundred weight of dried leaves carried off from a beech forest, 
we sacrifice a hundred and sixty cubic feet of wood. The leaves 
and the mosses are a substitute, not only for manure, but for 
ploughing. The carbonic acid given out by decaying leaves, 
when taken up by water, serves to dissolve the mineral con- 
stituents of the soil, and is particularly active in disintegrating 
feldspar and the clay derived from its decomposition. . : 
The leaves belong to the soil. Without them it cannot preserve 
its fertility, and cannot furnish nutriment to the beech. The 
trees languish, produce seed incapable of germination, and the 
spontaneous self-sowing, which is an indispensable element in 
the best systems of sylviculture, fails altogether in the bared and 
impoverished soil.” * 
Besides these evils, the removal of the leaves deprives the 
soil of much of that spongy character which gives it such im- 
* VAUPELL, Bigens Indvandring 4 de Danske Skove, pp. 29,46. Vaupell 
further observes, on the page last quoted: ‘‘ The removal of leaves is injurious 
to the forest, not only because it retards the growth of trees, but still more 
because it disqualifies the soil for the production of particular species. When 
the beech languishes, and the development of its branches is less vigorous and 
its crown less spreading, it becomes unable to resist the encroachments of the 
fir. This latter tree thrives in an inferior soil, and being no longer stifled by 
the thick foliage of the beech, it spreads gradually through the wood, while 
the beech retreats before it and finally perishes.” 
Schleiden confirms the opinion of Vaupell, and adds many important obser- 
vations on this subject.—Hir Baum und Wald, pp. 64, 65. 
