128 ELEMENTS OF SYLVICULTURE. 



beneficial influence is felt at a great distance, owing 

 to the plateaux being almost perfectly level. So far 

 they have both done as well as possible, and it 

 would perhaps be advisable to raise a continuous 

 curtain of these trees along the line of water-shed. 



FIRING IN HEAPS. When the ground is covered 

 with long grass, the open-air method loses all its 

 advantages, for the fire burns only the stalks, with- 

 out reaching the root. The cultivation of the soil 

 hence becomes impossible, and a crop of rye would 

 moreover be choked up by the grass which the ashes 

 would cause to grow up with increased vigour. In 

 this case the grassy surface ought to be cut up into 

 sods and the adhering earth shaken off. The sods, 

 together with the twigs and everything unsuited for 

 charcoal making, are collected in heaps and fired, 

 and the ashes scattered over the ground. Eye is 

 then sown broad-cast and covered over as described 

 above. 



This method offers the advantage of rendering 

 possible the reservation of a few standards, but it 

 is greatly inferior to the other. Thus the upper 

 portion of the soil, viz., that which is richest in 

 mould, is removed ; if the ground has a pronounced 

 slope, the washing down of the soil is favoured ; 

 when scattering the ashes, there are always sods of 

 turf, the combustion of which has been incomplete, 

 and experience has shown that every stool, on which 

 such sods fall, dies without producing a single shoot ; 

 lastly the stools are for the most part left slightly 

 higher than the ground. 



On the whole it is questionable whether surface 



