FOREST. 180 



acres of bracken and impenetrable thickets need 

 more inhabitants ; how well they are fitted for the 

 wild boar ! Such thoughts are, of course, only 

 thoughts, and we must be thankful that we have as 

 many wild creatures left as we have. 



Looking at the soil as we walk, where it is exposed 

 by the roots of a fallen tree, or where there is an 

 old gravel pit, the question occurs whether forests, 

 managed as they are in old countries, ever really 

 increase the fertility of the earth? That decaying 

 vegetation produces a fine mould cannot be disputed ; 

 but it seems here that there is no more decaying 

 vegetation than is required for the support of the trees 

 themselves. The leaves that fall the million million 

 leaves blown to and fro, at last disappear, absorbed 

 into the ground. So with quantities of the lesser 

 twigs and branches; but these together do not 

 supply more material to the soil than is annually 

 abstracted by the extensive roots of trees, of bushes, 

 and by the fern. If timber is felled, it is removed, 

 and the bark and boughs with it ; the stump, too, is 

 grubbed and split for firewood. If a tree dies it is 

 presently sawn off and cut up for some secondary use 

 or other. The great branches which occasionally fall 

 are some one's perquisite. When the thickets are 

 thinned out, the fagots are carted away, and much 

 of the fern is also removed. How, then, can there 

 be any accumulation of fertilizing material ? Bather 

 the reverse ; it is, if anything, taken away, and the 

 soil must be less rich now than it was in bygone 

 centuries. Left to itself the process would be the 

 reverse, every tree as it fell slowly enriching the spot 



