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CHAPTER VII. 



THE USE OF FOEEST LITTER. 



Section I. — General Account. 



In forests, the mineral soil is not exposed, but is everywhere 

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

 partly composed of living plants. When a dense broad-leaved 

 forest is left to nature, its soil-covering consists of dead leaves, 

 husks of fruit, fallen flowers, &c., which the trees shed periodi- 

 cally and with which dead fallen branches and twigs are mingled. 

 In a dense coniferous forest, the soil-covering consists of living 

 and dead mosses, among which are the dead fallen needles. 

 Wherever the soil is exposed to the influence of light, and in 

 more or less open woods, the soil also produces a number of 

 weeds of various species. 



If this covering is removed from the soil, the f»roductiveness 

 of the latter is greatly affected and in most cases deteriorates : 

 not unfrequently its power of producing wood may be completely 

 arrested. This removal of the soil-covering has in many forests 

 become a more or less regular custom and has unfortunately 

 assumed the character of a forest usage termed removal of forest 

 litter, the litter being used in stalls and stables instead of 

 straw. 



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 completely lose their organic 

 character, only their mineral components being left. More and 

 more organic matter is thus found 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, litter. While therefore in humus all 



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