CONTINENTAL NOTES — FRANCE. 1 49 



outside it not one seedling germinated. The seedlings extended 

 right up to the irregular edge of the dug area, and stopped 

 precisely at that line. 



II. — In the Moyenne Ardenne, in Belgium, there were some 

 spruce plantations among heath, dating from 1896. They grew 

 very badly, but in 1908 the heath was cut and the ground was 

 scratched and sown with broom, and also treated with basic 

 phosphate. The growth of the spruce was immediately, and 

 very greatly, improved. Other experiments made elsewhere 

 show it to be probable that the phosphate was not the cause 

 (or at least the main cause) of the improvement, but further 

 observations will be made on this point. 



M. Pierre Buffault, also, quotes a case in the Dordogne 

 where a plantation of spruce and hornbeam was made, and at 

 the same time the ground was sown, not with broom, but with 

 gorse. Both being papilionaceous plants would act similarly 

 so far as the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen is concerned. 

 The plantation was made in 1900, and since the gorse over 

 half the area has been periodically cut for litter. In 191 3 both 

 the spruce and the hornbeam in the untouched part were 

 growing grandly, and were from 5 to 7 metres high, over an 

 impenetrable thicket of gorse. (One gathers that the planting 

 was wide, or the gorse would have died out.) In the part 

 where the gorse was cut the spruce were only from i^ to 

 I metre in height. 



In the Landes also broom and gorse favourably affect the 

 growth of the pines. 



I myself, some years ago, cleared away a quantity of gorse 

 which had invaded a broad avenue between two woods, and 

 found a thriving crop of oak, with birch, lime, and other species. 

 But the success of this crop was not, I am inclined to think, 

 only due to the presence of a papilionaceous plant; it may 

 have been connected with the shelter provided by the gorse. 



III. — The late M. Broilliard used to say that in order to 

 decide whether a fungus was edible or poisonous his method, 

 when he came across a variety that was new to him, was to 

 nibble a little bit and then wait and see if he suffered. If 

 he did not the next time he met that fungus he ate a larger bit, 

 and thus eventually decided the point. However, it is advisable 



