132 MODERN FOREST ECONOMy. 



sive crops are raised on the ground thus cleared, and 

 enriched with the ashes of the trees. When the produc- 

 tiveness of this is considerably diminished it is aban- 

 doned; and the same operation is gone through else- 

 where; while the abandoned land may or may not be 

 recovered by the forest. 



This usage is very extensively followed amongst tribes 

 of people in the state of civilisation I have indicated ; but 

 it is not unknown amongst other peoples considerably 

 more advanced. In France it is practised and known 

 under the designation Sartage ; I do not know of any 

 specific English designation; and therefore I shall avail 

 myself of this designation in further treating of it. 



Sartage in France is now confined almost entirely to the 

 burning of bush and brushwood and of d4bris of felled 

 timber. The practice is practised chiefly in the Ardennes, 

 in the districts of Liege and Lilxembourg in Belgium, and 

 in certain localities in Southern Germany. It is more like 

 the burning of rank grass, rank herbage, and rank bush 

 than a burning of the forest; every precaution is taken 

 against its extending to trees which are valued ; and it 

 would be difficult to prove that at any previous time it 

 was otherwise, though the idea may be suggested that 

 thus have forests been extensively destroyed, as in Ger- 

 many they have been uprooted, to give place to agricul- 

 tural operations. 



The designation is applied to a treatment to which, in 

 certain districts, coppice woods, which are reproduced 

 principally by shoots and by suckers from the stumps and 

 roots of trees which have been felled, are subjected. After 

 each cutting down of the coppice wood, cereals are cul- 

 tivated for two or three years ; and the ground is prepared 

 for this by burning on the surface of the soil all <Mbru, 

 brambles, and brushwood, such as elders, hazles, cornels, 

 dog-wood, junipers, and thorns, together with the herbs and 

 turf growing there, with a view to render the soil more 

 favourable for the growth of the crop desired. 



