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CHAPTER IV. 



PROTECTION AGAINST HEAVY BAIN. 



1. Daniar/e done. 

 A. General Account. 



HEAVY and prolonged rainfall and occasionally water-spouts 

 damage forests by carrying away the dead leaves, the soil, and 

 seeds ; by uprooting young plants, the roots of which are not 

 sufficiently developed, such as seedlings and nursery trans- 

 plants recently put out ; by causing local swamps, destroying 

 roads and ditches, loosening the roots of trees, preventing 

 fruit from ripening, and breaking it off. 



The results are impoverishment of the soil, failure of 

 sowings, blanks in plantations, inundations, liability to wind- 

 fall, loss of seed, etc. 



B. Damage under Special Conditions. 



The conditions on which the extent of the damage de- 

 pends, independently of the force and volume of the rain- 

 fall, are chiefly the age of the crop, and the nature of the 

 locality. 



Only young plants the roots of which are insufficiently 

 developed run the risk of being uprooted. These are chiefly 

 young germinating seedlings, and transplants just lined out in 

 nurseries, or planted in a felling-area. 



As regards the locality, steep slopes with loose light soil, 

 which are neither covered with woody growth, nor with 

 herbage, moss or dead leaves, are most liable to damage. 

 Loose soil when saturated with rain renders the roots of trees 



