336 CAUSES OF THE DESTEUCTION OF THE FOEEST. 



hillock would soon clothe itseK anew with shrubs and trees, to 

 be again subjected to the same destructive process, and again sur- 

 rendered to the restorative powers of vegetable nature.* This 

 rude economy would be continued for generations, and, wasteful 

 as it is, is still largely pursued in Northern Sweden, Swedish 

 Lapland, and sometimes even in France and the United States.f 



Prmcvpal Ca/ases of the DestruGtion of the Forest. 



The needs of agriculture are the most f amihar cause of the 

 destruction of the forest in new countries ; for not only does an 

 increasing population demand additional acres to grow the vege- 

 tables which feed it and its domestic animals, but the slovenly 



* In many parts of tlie North American States, the first white settlers found 

 extensive tracts of thin woods, of a very park-like character, called "oak- 

 openings," from the predominance of different species of that tree upon them. 

 These were the semi-artificial pasture-grounds of the Indians, brought into 

 that state, and so kept, by partial clearing, and by the annual burning of the 

 grass. The object of this operation was to attract the deer to the fresh herb- 

 age which sprang up after the fire. The oaks bore the annual scorching at 

 least for a certain time ; but if it had been indefinitely continued, they would 

 very probably have been destroyed at last. The soil would have then been 

 much in the prairie condition, and would have needed nothing but grazing 

 for a long succession of years to make the resemblance perfect. That the 

 annual fires alone occasioned the peculiar character of the oak-openings, is 

 proved by the fact that as soon as the Indians had left the country, young 

 trees of many species sprang up and grew luxuriantly upon them. See a very 

 interesting account of the oak-openings in D wight's Travels, iv., pp. 58-63. 



f The practice of burning over woodland, at once to clear and manure the 

 ground, is called in Swedish svedjande, a participial noun from the verb att 

 soedja, to burn over. Though used in Sweden as a preparation for crops of 

 rye or other grain, it is employed in Lapland more frequently to secure an 

 abundant growth of pasturage, which follows in two or three years after the 

 fire ; and it is sometimes resorted to as a mode of driving the Laplanders and 

 their reindeer from the vicinity of the Swedish backwoodsman's grass-grounds 

 and hay-stacks, to which they are dangerous neighbors. The forest, indeed, 

 rapidly recovers itself, but it is a generation or more before the reindeer-mosa 

 grows again. "When the forest consists of pine, tall, the ground, instead of 

 being rendered fertile by this process, becomes hopelessly barren, and for a 

 long time afterwards produces nothing but weeds and briers. — L^stadius, 

 Om Uppodlingar i Lappma/rhen, p. 15. See also Schtjbebt, Beaa i Scerge, 

 ii., p. 375. 



In some parts of France this practice is so general that Clave says : "In the 

 department of Ardennes it {le sartage) is the basis of agriculture." 



