752 FIELD-CROPS IN COMBINATION WITH FORESTRY. 



more charred wood. The beneficial effects of burning the soil 

 are, however, more marked in Sengen. 



The field-crops last usually for two years. Generally, cereal 

 crops are cultivated, buckwheat, rye, oats, or potatoes, a third 

 crop being sometimes obtained. The ground cannot be 

 cleared always early enough for spring sowing, it then lies 

 fallow till the autumn, when it is sown for the next year's 

 crop. As soon as the cultivation of field-crops ceases, the area 

 is restocked with trees either by sowing or planting, and 

 occasionally the seed of the trees is sown with the last cereal 

 seed. 



There are several varieties of this mode of treating forest 

 land. Thus, in many pine districts, the felling-areas with 

 reserved standard trees standing on them are leased in lots 

 for one year's cereal cultivation, in order that the soil may be 

 thoroughly loosened for natural regeneration of the pine. The 

 soil must not then be too matted with weeds or roots if the cost 

 of cultivation is to be covered by only one year's crop. In Upper 

 Bavaria, spruce plants with balls of earth round their roots are 

 planted in land, which has been cropped with oats. The land 

 is cleared, cultivated, and oats sown in the spring. In the 

 second year a crop of potatoes is reared ; in the third year 

 another crop of oats mixed with spruce seed. From the fourth 

 to the sixth year the spruce seedlings are utilised as trans- 

 plants with balls of earth, and planted in lines on the area and 

 on other neighbouring cleared strips. 



4. Simultaneous Cultivation of Forest and Field-Crops. 



In the above-mentioned systems the felling-area is abandoned 

 to agriculture for several years, and the cultivation of a forest- 

 crop commences only after the last field-crop has been 

 harvested. The wood-increment is therefore lost during the 

 years occupied by the field-crops. There are, however, other 

 methods in which there is no interruption in the production 

 of wood, and the field-crop is merely intended to assist the 

 latter. The two most important varieties of this method are 

 termed in German, Hackirl<l and Wabyeldbau-Betrieb* 



(a) Hackwald. This is a combination of field-crops and 



