DAMAGE BY PASTURE. 745 



dew has nearly dried from off the grass, or else they will attack 

 the woody plants ; they will also do so in wet weather. 



System of Management. No damage is done by pasture 

 in clear-fellings that are planted only after remaining blank 

 for a few years, as a protection against the pine-weevil* : 

 it may be advisable to continue the pasture after the 

 planting has been effected, in order to keep down the 

 grass, otherwise the area is closed to grazing, and in 

 woods managed by the group system. In selection forests, 

 not only is there far more fodder produced, but damage 

 by cattle is more widely distributed than in concentrated 

 even-aged forest. 



iii. iJtnuiKjf by Tram^li-ny. 



It is evident that young plants must be damaged when 

 trampled by the hoofs of heavy cattle ; foals are most hurtful 

 in this respect; sheep also, owing to their sharp hoofs and 

 short stride, in spite of their comparatively light weight, do 

 much damage. Besides trampling-down young plants and 

 shoots and bruising young superficial roots, calves jump 

 about and crush saplings and poles. The amount of damage 

 done, however, is modified by the configuration of the 

 ground. 



On level or gently sloping ground the damage done by the 

 tread of cattle is only slight ; on steeper slopes, however, both 

 horned cattle and sheep, when grazing in narrow strips of forest 

 or passing daily in the same direction, make straight, narrow 

 paths, on dry slopes where the grass is scanty. The effects of 

 trampling are, however, much worse on steep, damp slopes, 

 with a clay subsoil, the cattle at each step slipping and 

 making grooves in the surface-soil, and burying every plant in 

 their way. In forests with a deep moist coating of humus, 

 where cattle come for the first time, it not unfrequently 

 happens that whole crops of trees perish, because the cattle 

 expose the superficial roots that are in the humus. Spruce 

 crops may thus become affected wholesale with root-rot, owing 

 to the wounds the cattle cause to their roots. 



* See Vol. IV. of this Manual. 



