200 TRAXSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



hardwoods and worked on shoi-t rotations. The planting has 

 been carried out more or less generally, but where the ground 

 is poor, and the danger from fire greatest, it has proved a failure ; 

 the young hardwoods have been killed by surface fires, or, where 

 the soil is cleared to an extent which prevents this, they have 

 been smothered by drifting sand. Behind this second strip again, 

 banks and ditches are cut to check surface fires. 



The above method of protecting the forest is explained in the 

 following plan, which is the usual method in the Chorin forest. 



This method is effectual enough, as is proved by the fact that 

 no forest fire has occurred from engine sparks, although 

 innumerable fires have broken out in the protection lines. But 

 the pecuniary sacrifice entailed in their maintenance is very 

 great. Apart from the strips of ground leased by the Railway 

 Department, and which have a nominal breadth of 25 yards, 

 but which are actually often wider, there are the strips behind 

 which have to be stocked by the Forest Department with an 

 unprofitable crop of hardwoods. But another disadvantage of 

 the present system lies in the fact that the height attained by 

 this hardwood crop is rarely sufficient to intercept all the sparks, 

 many of which are carried into the forest beyond, where the fires 

 resulting from them are stopped by the cross ditches. Under the 

 present system, again, the Forest Department has not only to 

 bear the cost of planting this unprofitable crop, but is also saddled 

 with the expense of cutting trenches in the section of forest 

 behind, and of the pruning and thinning of the trees, without any 

 compensation. The Railway Department, on the other hand, has 

 to keep clear the ditches and the ground on the first bare section, 

 and has also to pay compensation for actual damage done by fires 

 in the tree crop behind. 



It is to the interest of both Departments, therefore, that the 

 desired object should be attained in the least expensive manner, 

 and should, at the same time, render the protection lines thoroughly 

 effective by preventing fires beyond their zone of influence. The 

 essential conditions for the accomplishment of this purpose are — 

 (1) the absence of all combustible material on the surface of 

 the protection lines, or the existence of ditches broad enough to 

 prevent fires spreading beyond them ; and (2) the existence 

 of a crop of trees on the lines capable of preventing sparks from 

 flying beyond them. 



So far as the first condition is concerned, it has long been 



