EXCLUSION OF QUADRUPEDS. 371 



Exchision of Domestic Quad/rupeds. 



But probably tlie most important of all rules for tlie govern- 

 ment of the forest, wlietber natural or artificial, is that which 

 prescribes the absolute exclusion of all domestic quadrupeds, 

 except swine, from every wood which is not destined to be 

 cleared. No growth of young trees is possible where horned 

 cattle, sheep or goats, or even horses, are permitted to pasture 

 at any season of the year, though they are doubtless most de- 

 structive when trees are in leaf.* These animals browse upon 



* Although the economy of the forest has received little attention in the 

 United States, no lover of American nature can have failed to observe a 

 marked difference between a native wood from which cattle are excluded and 

 one where they are permitted to browse. A few seasons suflRce for the total 

 extirpation of the " underbrush," including the young trefes on which alone 

 the reproduction of the forest depends, and all the branches of those of larger 

 growth which hang within reach of the cattle are stripped of their buds and 

 leaves, and soon wither and fall off. These effects are observable at a great 

 distance, and a wood-pasture is recognized, almost as far as it can be seen, by 

 the regularity with which its lower foliage terminates at what Ruskin some- 

 where calls the " cattle-line." This always runs parallel to the surface of the 

 ground, and is determined by the height to which domestic quadrupeds can reach 

 to feed upon the leaves. In describing a visit to the grand-ducal farm of San 

 Rossore near Pisa, where a large herd of camels is kept, Chateauvieux says : 

 " In passing through a wood of evergreen oaks, I observed that all the twigs 

 and foliage of the trees were clipped up to the height of about twelve feet 

 above the ground, without leaving a single spray below that level. I was in- 

 formed that the browsing of the camels had trimmed the trees as high as they 

 could reach." — Ltjllin de Chateauvieux, Lettres sur Vltalie, p. 113. 



Browsing animals, and most of all the goat, are considered by foresters as 

 more injurious to the growth of young trees, and, therefore, to the reproduc- 

 tion of the forest, than almost any other destructive cause. According to 

 Beatson's Saint Helena, introductory chapter, and Darwin's Journal of Be- 

 searcJies in Geology and Natural History, pp. 582, 583, it was the goats which 

 destroyed the beautiful forests that, three hundred and fifty years ago, cov- 

 ered a continuous surface of not less than two thousand acres in the interior 

 of the island [St. Helena], not to mention scattered groups of trees. Dar- 

 win observes : " During our stay at Valparaiso, I was most positively assured 

 that sandal-wood formerly grew in abundance on the island of Juan Fernan- 

 dez, but that this tree had now become entirely extinct there, having been 

 extirpated by the goats which early navigators had introduced. The neigh- 

 boring islands, to which goats have not been carried, still abound in sandal- 

 wood." 



In the winter, the deer tribe, especially the great American moose-deer, sub- 

 sists much on the buds and young sprouts of trees ; yei — though from the 



