252 DEVASTATIONS OCCASIONED BY TOBEENTS, 



Amyot, as containing valuable details in regard to the measures adopted — 

 both in sowing and planting — in the mountains of the Oberland. Of the 

 preparation of the soil he says, — When the surface of the soil is bare, and 

 of too great a declivity to give any certainty of stability, the first thing to 

 be done is to fix it, which may be done by means of hurdles. 



The soil being fixed, it is next requisite to prepare it for the reception 

 of seed or plants ; and in reference to this he quotes a proverb, current in 

 the south of France, to the effect that good weeding, hoeing, or digging, 

 may count for a watering. And he goes on to remark, that plantations 

 should only be made in ground well broken up and well wrought, any 

 danger of such soil being carried away being met by the hurdles employed. 



The digging and breaking up, he recommends, should penetrate to a 

 depth of from 16 to 20 inches, and should be accompanied by the removal 

 of stones, and the filling up of the. hollows they created with the good 

 superficial soil surrounding them. 



When the soil betweu the hurdles has been thus broken up, the location 

 of the plants must be determined by the nature of the soil. On calcareous 

 rubble, the plants must be ^et immediately below the hurdles, for such 

 ground being constantly falling they will thus be protected from injury by 

 the falling stones. But on ground more stable — as on marls, for example — 

 they may be planted in the middle of the bands between the hurdles, or 

 even immediately above these, the earth which may accumulate from the 

 continuous falling being too little to destroy or injure the plants. 



When the surface is covered with vegetation, and stable, hurdles are 

 unnecessary ; but it may be well to break up the ground in plots on places so 

 narrow and steep that there may be some danger of the falling down of the 

 earth occasioning erosion. These plots may be from 16 to 40 inches square, 

 or in the some cases the ground may be broken up in horizontal strips 3 

 feet or more in breadth, and 12 or 15 feet long, at such a distance from 

 each other that the branches of the trees to be planted may touch when they 

 have attained to the state of perches, a distance varying with the kind of 

 trees planted from a fathom to 20 feet. 



When the work takes this form of strips, it is necessary to make the 

 surface as horizontal as possible ; otherwise, the earth may be swept to 

 the lower edge of it it by the first storm of rain which may occur. In 

 many cases, the lower sides of such strips may be sustained by low walls 

 composed of the stones taken out in breaking up the ground. In stony 

 ground, such walls are built on the upper border of the strips, in such a 

 way as to arrest rolling stones, and so keep these from falling against the 

 plants. This system has been employed with the happiest results by M. 

 Demontzey in the southern Alps, securing at the same time other advan- 

 tages besides that referred to. 



When it can be done, it is well to leave the broken-up ground for some 

 time exposed to atmospheric influences — allowing a winter, or at least some 

 months, to intervene between the preparation of the soil and the planting 

 of the trees. 



With regard to the method of rehoisement by sowing seeds of trees, he 

 writes, — " This method of rehoisement it is not in general advisable to adopt, 

 as it rarely gives satisfiictory results ; while a considerable gain of time is 

 secured, with greater probability of success, by planting young trees. But 

 . there is a method of sowing frequently adopted where the ground is pre- 

 pared in strips, which — thanks to the good preparation of the soil, and the 

 relatively pretty large extent of the ground broken up — succeeds well, 



