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CHAPTEK III. 



FOREST-LITTER. 



SECTION I. GENERAL ACCOUNT. 



IN forests, the mineral soil is not exposed, but it is everywhere 

 coated with a vegetable soil-covering, which is partly dead and 

 partly composed of living plants. The nature of the soil- 

 covering varies according to the shade it receives. In a dense 

 beech forest the soil-covering consists of dead leaves, husks of 

 fruit, fallen flowers, etc., which the trees shed periodically and 

 with which dead fallen branches and twigs are mingled. In a 

 dense old spruce or silver-fir forest, the soil-covering consists 

 of living and dead mosses, among which are the dead fallen 

 needles, cones, scales of bark, etc. Under light-demanding trees, 

 the soil is exposed to the influence of light, and, besides the 

 fallen debris from the trees, it also exhibits a number of 

 weeds of various species. 



Whenever the soil-covering of a forest, consisting of dead 

 leaves or needles and moss, is left to the natural process of 

 decomposition, its lowest layers lose completely their organic 

 character, only their mineral components being left. More 

 and more organic matter thus occurs in its upper layers, till the 

 surface consists of dead leaves or living moss. Its lower and 

 partly decomposed layer is termed humus and its upper decom- 

 posing and living layers, ground-litter (Bodenstreu). While 

 therefore in humus all vegetable structure has disappeared, in 

 ground-litter this structure is quite recognisable. 



Humus cannot be used in stalls for litter, but it has some 

 value as manure and is appreciated by the farmer as an 

 adjunct to litter. It is generally the undecomposed layers of 

 the soil-covering only, that are used as litter in agricul- 

 ture. Hence a distinction is made between the following 

 kinds of ground-litter: 



