210 FOREST PLANTING. 



stone, forming hydrates. Denuded woodlands on lime- 

 stone mountains, therefore, very soon lose their vegetable 

 mold. At first, it is true, there will spring up a strong 

 sward of grasses; but soon, for want of shade and moist- 

 ure, the grasses disappear, the soil softens by the rain 

 and snow water, becomes a pap which, after the evapo- 

 ration of the natural moisture, dries up stone-like, and 

 exhibits at the surface but burned-up spots. 



If, on the other hand, forests on limestone mountains 

 are managed so as to have the soil always covered with 

 trees — as is the case with the " planter management " — 

 there will nowhere grow finer beech forests. The culti- 

 vation of this majestic tree is natural to this soil, forming 

 the most convenient habitat to the beech. The shade 

 created by the dense growth of the beeches makes the 

 surface soil increase in richness from year to year, and 

 this increase of plant-food furnished by the decaying 

 leaves and twigs of the beech is amply returned to the 

 forest vegetation. Certainly, coniferous trees will suc- 

 ceed on these places just as well as beeches, and as the 

 more valuable kinds of evergreens prove to be commer- 

 cially more profitable than beeches, the cultivation of 

 the pride of the old European foresters, already dimin- 

 ished by the encroachments made by the agricultural 

 interests in the beech lands on the plains, is in the old 

 country decreasing from year to year. 



For the restoration of the denuded woodlands in lime- 

 stone mountains we have again to resort to the pine, 

 this being the only tree which will, even luxuriantly, 

 grow on such soil. 



This observation has led many scientific foresters to 

 assume that pines should be principally raised upon the 

 soil in question. But experience has shown that this 

 was a mistake. The luxuriant growth of the pine does 

 not last longer than the first twenty years of its life; 



