FISHERIES, GAME AND FORESTS. 40 1 



and marshes. Although covered at times with water, it holds the soil of banks 

 tenaciously and captures the sediment, which would otherwise wash hither and thither. 

 The Dutch hold boisterous rivers in check by means of it, and with its aid form fertile 

 farms of mud, which would otherwise wash into the North Sea. The Swiss and 

 French hold their mountains in place by forests, and were it not for the forests of pine 

 in Gascony, great masses of sand would shift from place to place with every caprice 

 of the wind. 



The forest not only enriches the soil, but it is a soil-former. Even the most tender 

 rootlet, because of the acidity of its tip, is able to dissolve its way through certain 

 kinds of rock. This, together with the acids formed in the decomposition of humus, 

 is a potent and speedy agent in the production of soil. The roots of trees have no 

 difficulty whatever in penetrating limestone rock, and in coral islands whole forests 

 may be seen grov/ing in a total absence of real soil. Other rocks, such as granite, 

 which contain soluble constituents, are disintegrated by the action of the acids 

 resulting from the decomposition of vegetal matter; as the rock crumbles soluble 

 inorganic materials are released, which enrich neighboring soils. In view of the 

 destruction occasioned by the carelessness of mankind, it is a consoling fact that 

 Nature, although slowly, is gradually improving her waste lands. If not interrupted 

 by fire, the barest rock and the fallowest field, under conditions which may be called 

 unfavorable, will become in the course of time forest-clad and fertile. Here and there 

 in the Adirondacks, on the tops of large rocks, may be seen dead pine trees which 

 have been killed but not consumed by fire. Their roots are bare and rest on rocks 

 which are also bare. Many of these trees have reached large proportions. No doubt 

 these rocks were once covered by a deep layer of soil — sufficient at any rate to 

 produce large pines. This mass of humus, beginning with the lichens and mosses, 

 must have been ages in forming. Fire sweeps these rocky tops and ledges clean, and 

 leaves the grim old pines standing, forming targets for lightning, by means of which 

 they are being shattered. The lichens and mosses have begun again, other herbaceous 

 and woody plants will follow, and trees will finally come ; but the process is a slow 

 one, which is liable to many interruptions by fire. Where fires have burned on these 

 mountains, the soil which is left soon washes away, and ages elapse before the cycle 

 is again complete. When the forest is destroyed in mountainous districts it is water 

 which finishes the work of destruction. On sand land when fire has swept the surface 

 clear, it is the wind which picks it up, and shifts it hither and thither. Sand has the 

 advantage of a mountainous district, however, in that it furnishes at once a deeper 

 rootage. 



Most of those trees which succeed best in sand soils have a deep root system. 

 Although not perhaps in such striking degree as in rocky regions, the chemical action 

 26 



