" SARTAGE" IN FRANCE, 99 



level of where it was cut across. Still it always happens 

 that in every clearing by Sartage there are void places 

 which it would be weU to fill artificially. 



In the Ardennes, immediately after the reaping of the 

 cereals, brooms and other brushwoods sprout up in great 

 abundance, especially where the coppice has been sub- 

 jected to Sartage a feu courant. These bushes often stifle 

 the seedlings. But by planting these when from 18 

 inches to 3 feet in height, and previously prepared in a 

 nursery, and by rooting out from the first year's growth 

 the bushes which may spring up around them, the success 

 of the operation may be rendered almost certain. 



The presence of these bushes in the clearings is at the 

 same time advantageous to the shoots in their tender 

 age, inasmuch as they protect them against the inclemen- 

 cies of the weather; and these small bushes supply 

 products which may be subjected to regular exploitation 

 some few years after the clearing of the wood, there being 

 a demand for them, more especially as firewood for ovens. 

 It connection with this it may be remarked that there is 

 a danger of the growth of these bushes being allowed to 

 go on too long, with a view to deriving from them the 

 more profit, in which case the shoots of hard wood, 

 especially those of the oak, loose too soon their lower 

 branches, forming no body in these from deficiency of 

 light ; and they are often liable to languish or to be crushed 

 by the snow when the support supplied by the brushwood 

 is withdrawn. 



To confine the fire within the area of the clearing, the 

 ground around this is broken with a pickaxe to a certain 

 extent immediately before the fire is applied, and men are 

 stationed all around the enclosed space to meet and subdue 

 the fire, if by any chance it extend to the parts beyond. 

 In some localities in Germany when the area is extensive, 

 they take the additional precaution to subdivide it into a 

 number of separate portions, one of which only is burned 

 at a time, The separations are made by breaking up a 



