PASTURE. 739 



covering consists chiefly of dead leaves. In high forest, the 

 most favourable localities for pasture are : narrow strip- 

 fellings, or large clear-cut areas; extensive fellings under a 

 shelterwood, that have been rendered unfit for natural 

 regenerations by storms, which have blown down the mother- 

 trees, are the best places in a forest for pasture. Next to 

 these come coppices and coppice-with-standards, with their 

 areas either clear of trees or slightly shaded by the standards. 

 Natural regeneration under a shelterwood diminishes the 

 growth of herbage ; in thoroughly successful cases, there is 

 nothing for the beasts to eat except the young crop of forest 

 trees. 



2. Species of Cattle. 



Forest pasture is used chiefly by horned cattle ; also by 

 sheep and goats ; less frequently by horses or ponies. [In 

 India, elephants, camels and buffalos may be added to the 

 above list. Tr.] Among these, horned cattle do the least 

 damage, for they prefer grazing on the ground, and as long as 

 there is sufficient grass and herbage, will not attack the woody 

 plants. The sheep likes dry pasture, and prefers short grass 

 among woody plants, to a strong, luxuriant growth of grass, 

 and especially prefers fodder that has grown unshaded by 

 trees ; it attacks woody plants much more freely than do horned 

 cattle. If there are no dry pastures, sheep peel trees in a 

 similar way to red deer. The goat is absolutely destructive to 

 the forest, and no other beast shows such a preference for 

 woody plants, which it will attack, however abundant the 

 supply of grass may be. This greedy beast, often indeed 

 indispensable to the poor peasant, bites off the buds, young 

 shoots and leaves, of almost every woody plant within its 

 reach ; no forest is too remote for it, and no mountain too 

 lofty, no patch of woody growth beyond its reach, and it even 

 bears-down fairly tall saplings with its fore-legs, in order to 

 nibble their juicy tops. Forests in the Alps, the South Tyrol 

 and Southern Switzerland, which were formerly so well 

 wooded, and those of Spain, Greece, Sicily, etc., have been 

 destroyed chiefly by herds of goats ; even up to the present 

 time a limit has not been put to their ravages. 



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