PREPARATION OF THE SOIL. 71 



hectares under cultivation ; and in Corsica nine-tenths of the island 

 are covered by the maquis, or heaths. In Gascony, to one who would 

 urge the destruction of the heath, the agriculturist of Chalosse, or 

 of Beam would reply — No heath, no maize ; exactly, as elsewhere, one 

 would say — No dung, no wheat. And in that climate it is impossible 

 to carry out a rational and profitable culture excepting on the bases 

 of two hectares of heath for one under culture. 



And there, by students of agricultural economy, it is deemed proper 

 to seek the improvement of the poorer land by rearing trees upon it, 

 instead of attempting to introduce at once the appliances of what is 

 known as high farming. But even for woods the land here requires 

 preparation, and the preparation which is found to be most appropriate 

 is the culture of certain cereals, alternating with a growth of the 

 maritime pine, without which it would be hazardous to attempt the 

 growth of the Scots fir, the Gorsican pine, and the Norway fir, and the 

 oak, and the birch, all of which have been cultivated here with the 

 best results. 



But the land improver must wait many years before he can say 

 whether the land will bear the other coniferae ; and the oak, and 

 other broad-leaved trees, it is alleged grow but slowly and require 

 shelter. And even when the time has come to attempt the growth 

 of such, it is not uncommon to grow a mixture of the maritime pine 

 with the other coniferae, the oak, the birch, and the chesnut ; as, 

 should the others fail, it at least will grow ; and if all succeed it is easy 

 to sacrifice any one kind for the promotion of the growth of the others ; 

 and in any case it will give shelter to those which might suffer from 

 frost, and it will yield marketable products, while the oak and the 

 birch are still too young to be subjected to exploitation. 



In Sologne we have a well-defined geological district, about 

 440,000 hectares, or above a million of acres in extent. The 

 superficial strata have been designated by geologists specifically as 

 the Sands and Clays of the Sologne, a formation reckoned amongjthe 

 upper layers of the middle range of the tertiary period. 



It may be represented, says Boitel in his volume entitled " Mis? 

 en valeur des Terres Pauvres par le Pin Maritime," as a vast 

 calcareous basin, filled by alternate deposits of sand and of clay. 

 This basin, the wall of which crops out at a great many points along 

 the circumference of La Sologne, presents naturally different depths 

 at different localities. 



In two borings, within yards of each other, at Savigny (Loiret) 



