PREPARATION OP THE SOIL FOR SYLVICULTURE. 75 



formed of maritime pines. Isolated portions often look neglected, 

 because the bad habit prevails of pasturing cattle in oak-coppice 

 woods. There are even proprietors who tolerate this abuse in les 

 haux. Plantations of maritime pines are better protected, but care- 

 less shepherds often allow their flocks to brouse on the young shoots. 



" It may be remarked that boisements, or plantations of trees, are 

 gradually encroaching on the arable ground. It is more than thirty 

 years since this invasion began. The soil, naturally poor in lime and 

 fertilizing elements, is rapidly exhausted by the prevailing bad farm- 

 ing. What can be done with such soil 1 Simply to sow three or four 

 francs' worth of the seed of the maritime pine, and to wait for the 

 growth of the young forest. Such an insignificant outlay preparing 

 for a certain return being obtained from soil absolutely useless for 

 agriculture. 



" These improvements often take place on land otherwise unproduc- 

 tive, because it is the interest of the proprietors to do this. Subse- 

 quently a portion is cleared and made arable, and when exhausted by 

 fifteen or twenty years' culture, it is again planted with wood. In 

 this way in sandy cantons the farmer, or small land-holder, succes- 

 sively clearing and planting, becomes an important agent in 

 re-converting the lands into forests." 



In regard to the formation of pine woods in La Sologne, M. Boitel 

 supplies the following information : 



" Frejxiration of the Ground. — The extension of sylviculture, which 

 would fall to be deprecated if it implied that the land planted with 

 trees was land withdrawn from agriculture, comes to be desirable 

 when it is carried out on laud fit for the growth of trees alone, and 

 which has become so only after a few years of temporary cultivation. 

 In Sologne nothing is more difficult than to convert a Lande at once 

 into a forest. The most experienced men carefully avoid attempting 

 to do so ; as when the soil of the Lande has been carefully prepared 

 to receive the seed, it is at once covered by a vigorous vegetation of 

 heath, broom, and gorse or whin, which never fail to choke the young 

 trees. Immediate boisement, or plantation with trees, succeeds rarely, 

 and only on very dry soils, where the heaths are stunted. Except in 

 such rare conditions, it may be said the natural growth (heaths, 

 broom, and gorse or whins) are stronger than the maritime pine, the oak, 

 and the birch ; when the seedlings come into collision, victory accrues 

 to the indigenous growth of the soil. Sologne, in this respect, is 

 very different from Gascony, where the maritime pine, by natural 



