* SARTAGE” IN FRANCE. 99 
level of where it was cut across. Still it always happens 
that in every clearing by Sartage there are void places 
which it would be well to fill artificially. 
In the Ardennes, immediately after the reaping of the 
cereals, brooms and other brushwoods sprout up in great 
abundance, especially where the coppice has been sub- 
jected to Sartage a feu courant. These bushes often stifle 
the seedlings. But by planting these when from 18 
inches to 3 feet in height, and previously prepared in a 
nursery, and by rooting out from the first year’s growth 
the bushes which may spring up around them, the success 
of the operation may be rendered almost certain. 
The presence of these bushes in the clearings is at the 
same time advantageous to the shoots in their tender 
age, inasmuch as they protect them against the inclemen- 
cies of the weather; and these small bushes supply 
products which may be subjected to regular exploitation 
some few years after the clearing of the wood, there being 
a demand for them, more especially as firewood for ovens, 
It connection with this it may be remarked that there is 
a danger of the growth of these bushes being allowed to 
go on too long, with a view to deriving from them the 
more profit, in which case the shoots of hard wood, 
especially those of the oak, loose too soon their lower 
branches, forming no body in these from deficiency of 
light ; and they are often liable to languish or to be crushed 
by the snow when the support supplied by the brushwood 
is withdrawn. 
To confine the fire within the area of the clearing, the 
ground around this is broken with a pickaxe to a certain 
extent immediately before the fire is applied, and men are 
stationed all around the enclosed space to meet and subdue 
the fire, if by any chance it extend to the parts beyond. 
In some localities in Germany when the area is extensive, 
they take the additional precaution to subdivide it into a 
number of separate portions, one of which only is burned 
at atime. The separations are made by breaking up a 
