52U K()I!KST-FODI)Ki:. 



ii. AtnoHiit of Lhiht. 



Grasses, clovers and most fodck-r-pliints are decided light- 

 demauders : on a soil covered with a dense growth of woody 

 plants, or from which light is otherwise excluded, no grass 

 usually grows ; only when the leaf-canopy of a wood becomes 

 elevated and admits lateral light, and more and more light 

 reaches the ground under an old wood, does the surface become 

 gradually overgrown with herbage. If the wood is under 

 natural regeneration, and the soil contains some humus and is 

 naturally moist, the production of grass is at a maximum, and 

 frequently struggles with the woody plants for possession of the 

 ground. If the soil be sufficiently fertile, more or less woody 

 plants and shrubs spring up, such as raspberry, blackberry, 

 briars, loose-strife, thistles, hypericums, belladonnas, &c., birch, 

 aspens, sallows appearing here and there ; then the woody 

 species which the forest is intended to produce sooner or later 

 disentangle themselves from this heterogeneous vegetation, the 

 grass begins gradually to thin out under their shade and tinally 

 disajipears when the woody crop is reconstituted. 



Light-demanding trees evidently favour the production of 

 grass much more than shade-bearing trees. Among them, 

 oak forests in the broad alluvial valleys and larch-woods* in the 

 mountains are the regular grass-producing forests. Among 

 shade-bearing trees, spruce and silver-tir forests produce more 

 grass than beech-woods, on account of the greater degree of 

 moisture in the former and because their soil-covering of dead 

 needles and moss impedes the germination and growth of grasses 

 less than the dense covering of dead leaves of the latter. 



The most grassy places in forests are therefore regeneration 

 fellings, badly stocked places where light is admitted, especially 

 in older woods and in woods of light-demanding species ; and, 

 tinally, blanks, unfrequently used roads, and places for stacking 

 timber, road-sidings, and so on. 



iii. S//.st('iii nj' MaiKincinciif. 



Pollarding is adopted rather with a view to pasture than to the 

 production of wood, and grassy tracts on rich, fresh soil along 

 * Tlie gra.'iS in many larch-woods in tlie Alps is regularly mown. 



