782 FOREST-LITTER. 



load. People who are very keen about bracken being well- 

 dried pay the extra price. From 1,800 to 2,000 waggon-loads 

 are thus removed annually. In Windsor Forest, it is sold at 

 2s. a cart-load (one horse), the purchaser cutting it. In the 

 Dean Forest, there is a poor crop of bracken, it being cut too 

 early, which weakens the rhizomes considerably. The Hon. 

 G. Lascelles, Deputy Surveyor, New Forest, who supplied the 

 above information, states that if bracken is cut before the end 

 of September, as in the Forest of Dean, its rhizomes become 

 greatly weakened, and the crop becomes gradually poorer. 



We have seen above that the removal of dead leaves and 

 other forest-litter is practised extensively in Germany. 

 In France, this removal is termed soutrage, and litter is 

 litiere, but the benefits to the forest by disallowing its removal 

 have been felt so long, that no rights-of-common to such a 

 destructive practice are allowed by law, and in the standard 

 French book on silviculture, Boppe et Jolyet, " Les Forets," 

 1901, the practice (p. 123) is alluded to merely, " Mais le 

 silviculteur doit surtout s'opposer de la facon la plus energique 

 a Venlevement des feuilles mortes. Heureusement, ce fleau, qui 

 sevit encore en Allemagne, est tres localise en France." Tr.] 



SECTION VIII. LIMITS TO PERMISSIBLE USE OF FOREST- 

 LITTER. 



Section I. of this chapter deals, in a general way, with the 

 question of forest-litter, and describes its important action 

 upon the well-being of the forest and on the production of 

 wood ; it proves also that the removal of the litter is most 

 injurious, whenever it is necessary for the soil and crop of 

 trees in question. No further remarks on these points, there- 

 fore, are required here, but those cases will be explained, in 

 which the removal of litter does the least possible harm to the 

 forest, or even may be useful to it. 



1. Locality. 



Dead-leaf litter may be removed from places, where its 

 presence is indifferent, or superabundant ; from areas not 

 used for the production of trees, such as forest meadows, 



