374 NATURAL HEGENKBATION BY BKED. 



the Indus, the low islands of Amcict Catechu and Zizyphus at the 

 base of the Himalayas, the easier slopes occupied by Pinus longi- 

 folia, &c. may offer occasions for employing this method ; but 

 before attempting to generalize it in any given locality, careful 

 and cautious experiments must be made to place its efficacy be- 

 yond all doubt and independent of all contingencieSi 



SECTION 11. 



The method of cleared lines. 



Description of the method. — In this method long naiTow 

 belts of uniform width are completely cleared through the forest 

 and the bordering trees are expected to sow them. The width of 

 the cleared belts is generally limited to the average height of the 

 forest through which they are cut, so that the seeds have to be 

 carried only a very few feet either way in order to reach the 

 middle. 



On level ground the lines should run at right angles to the direc- 

 tion of dangerous winds. In hilly country, however, considerations 

 of quite a different nature must determine the direction of the 

 lines. When the gradients are moderate and there is no danger of 

 the cleared lines degenerating into watercourses or of the young 

 growth on them being injured by the slow glacier-like downward 

 movement of lying snow, it is advisable to make them follow lines 

 of steepest descent, thereby secui'ing the following advantages : — 



(1) the trees, as they are felled, will not have to come crashing 

 down the hill side through standing forest that is to be preserved ; 



(2) as most of the wood and timber will slip down to the lowest 

 point of the slope, i.e., into the valley below, their conversion, and 

 particularly their export, will be singularly facilitated ; (3) the 

 downward rush of the trees and logs will prepare the ground 

 for the future sowing by destroying all injurious undergrowth, 

 loosening the soil, and pulverising and mixing up with it any over- 

 lying accumulation of half-decomposed leaves and other vegetable 

 debris, which would otherwise be a real obstacle to the regeneration. 

 But if there is danger in following lines of steepest descent, the 

 cleared lines must obviously run more or less horizontally ; and 

 in that case, they ought to succeed each other from the top down- 

 wards, so that the new generation may never have trees coming 

 down crashing through it ; and an intact belt of forest should be 

 left above all in order to sow successively all the clearings made 

 below. This topmost parent belt itself can of course never be cut 

 away and it must, therefore, be regenerated by jardinage ; its 



