368 HILL-PLANTING. 



be spared, and whose removal is necessary to obtain a propel 

 length of stem, are very smoothly cut off quite close to the trunk, 

 and the exposed surface is immediately brushed over with min- 

 eral-coal tar. When thus treated, it is said that the heahng of 

 the wound is perfect, and without any decay of the tree. Trees 

 trained by De Courval's method, which is now universally ap- 

 proved and much practiced in France, rapidly attain a great 

 height. They grow with remarkable straightness of stem and 

 of grain, and their timber commands the highest price.* 



A system of plantation, specially though not exclusively suited 

 to very moist soils, recommended by Duhamel a hundred years 

 ago, has been revived in Germany, within about twenty years, 

 with much success. It is called hill-planting, and consists in plac- 

 ing the young tree upright on the greensward with its roots prop- 

 erly spread out, and then covering the roots and supporting the 

 trunk by thick sods cut so as to form a circxdar hillock around it.f 

 By this method it is alleged trees can be grown advantageously 

 both in dry ground and on humid soils, where they would not strike 

 root if planted in . holes after the usual manner. If there is 

 any trath in the theory of a desiccating action in evergreen 

 trees, plantations of this sort might have a value as drainers of 

 lands not easily laid dry by other processes. There is much 

 ground on the great prairies of the "West, where experiments 

 with this method of planting are strongly to be recommended. 



It is common in Europe to permit the removal of the fallen 

 leaves and fragments of bark and branches with which the forest- 

 soil is covered, and sometimes the cutting of the lower twigs of 

 evergreens. The leaves and twigs are principally used as litter 

 for cattle, and finally as manure, the bark and wind-fallen branches 

 as fuel. By long usage, sometimes by express grant, this privi- 

 lege has become a vested right of the population in the neighbor- 



* See De Court al, Taille et conduite des Arbres forestiers, et autres arhres 

 de grande dimension. Paris, 1861. 



The most important part of Viscount de Courval's system will be found in 

 L'Elagage des Arbres, par le Comte A. Des Cars, an admirable little treatise, 

 of which numerous editions, at the price of one franc, have been printed since 

 the first, of 1864, and which has been translated and published in the United 

 States. 



f See Manteuffel, L'Art de Planter, traduit par Stumper. Paris, 1868. 



