318 FIEE CONSERVANCY. 



In tlie Maiires and Esterel the conditions as regards soil and 

 1 imate are of an entirely different character, and the cork oak is 

 the most innportant and abundant of the broad leaved denizens of 

 the forest. There roads and paths, without which access to and 

 inspection of the forests would be impossible, and their manage- 

 ment, as it were, get out of hand altogether, could not be run in 

 straight lines or be cleared at equal distances apart. They must 

 before everything else, be laid out in accordance with the lie of the 

 ground and be given just sufficient width (say, from 7 to 10 feet for 

 carts, and only 3 feet for men on foot), so as to admit of a large num- 

 ber of them being made. But, as before, the sides of these roads and 

 foot-paths should be cleared of brushwood over an aggregate breadth 

 of from 130 to 170 feet. Within these belts all ling and other 

 bushes, offering easy access to fire must he rooted out ; arbutus^ 

 lentisksand other shrubs with broad fleshy leaves, which cover the 

 soil and do not become dry and combustible, should be preserved. 

 Pines growing on these belts should be felled to enable cork oaks, 

 whether selt-sown or artificially introduced, to push up, so as tO' 

 destroy all connection for the spread of fire between adjacent 

 insulated blocks of the forest. Ofien the protective belts may 

 even be planted up with the sweet chestnut, the thick foliage of 

 which keeps the soil moist and kills out all low vegetation. Such 

 canopied belts of chestnut would present an iropassahle barrier to 

 the progress of fire, provided that at the end of every winter the 

 soil wad swept clear, at least partially, of the dead leaves covering 

 it. 



We thus see that the same method of fire protection as befor& 

 is applicable here, with differences only of practical detail. It is 

 of a more complex character in the Maures, modifications being 

 necessary in going from one slope to an adjacent one ; but its- 

 essential characteristic of being based on the establishment of 

 roads, tracks and paths in accordance with the nature of the soil 

 and topography alwaj^s remains unchanged. Thus the economical 

 construction of this network of export and communication lines, 

 which are as indispensable for creating a market for the produce 

 of those forests as for protecting them, constitutes the most im- 

 portant question involved in their organisation. But protection 

 against fire is at the same time a necessary condition imposed by 

 Sylviculture, which art here again as elsewhere cannot be dis- 

 sociated from its sister aad handmaid, the Organisation of Forests. 



