122 AGRICULTUKE OX THE BHI>'E. 



remarkably-shaped plough, light enough to be managed 

 upon steeps often presenting an angle of 50° to 60°. 

 Oxen are generally used for this work, and rye is the 

 grain that experience shows to thrive best in these 

 cleared thickets. The paring, buniing, ploughing, and 

 sowing are again performed by each owner on his own 

 lot. Nothing is common amongst the proprietors but the 

 resolution to follow a peculiar system of cultivation, and 

 the general property in the soil, which is periodically 

 divided in the manner we have described. The year 

 after the rye is harvested the ground is left in repose, 

 and in the following or fourth year the whole ground is 

 covered with broom {genista). This curious crop is cut 

 close to the ground in the autumn, and does not re- 

 appear until the fourth year after the cutting of the 

 wood — that is to say, until twenty or eighteen years after 

 it has been gathered in, according to the term of years 

 which the wood is allowed to stand. The peasants 

 use the broom for thatching roofs and the weather-side 

 of their houses. The poorer people make it serve in 

 their stables for litter for cows and horses— the thick 

 stems serving for fuel. After the broom, grass appears in 

 some abundance ; and the cattle of the proprietors, where 

 the wood is private property, or of the village, where 

 the wood belongs to one, are driven to graze among the 

 young trees. Many foresters are of opinion that this 

 practice is injurious to the young shoots : the peasants 

 maintain that their gain from the grazing exceeds their 

 loss in the wood-crop. It is probable that the broom is 

 kept down by the cows nibbling at the young shrub. 

 The yield from a morgen of " hauberg," as these woods 



