REMOVAL OF LEAVES. 
323 
twigs of evergreens. Tlie leaves and twigs are principally 
used as litter for cattle, and finally as manure, the bark and 
wind-fallen branches as fuel. By long usage, sometimes by 
express grant, this privilege has become a vested right of the 
population in the neighborhood of many public, and even 
large private forests ; but it is generally regarded as a serious 
evil. To remove the leaves and fallen twigs is to withdraw 
much of the pabulum upon which the tree was destined to 
feed. The small branches and leaves are the parts of the tree 
which yield the largest proportion of ashes on combustion, and 
of course they supply a great amount of nutriment for the 
young shoots. u A cubic foot of twigs,” says Yaupell, “ yields 
four times as much ashes as a cubic foot of stem wood. * * 
For every hundred weight of dried leaves carried off from a 
beech forest, we sacrifice a hundred and sixty cubic feet of 
wood. The leaves and the mosses are a substitute, not only 
for manure, but for ploughing. The carbonic acid given out 
by decaying leaves, when taken up by water, serves to dissolve 
the mineral constituents of the soil, and is particularly active 
in disintegrating feldspar and the clay derived from its decom¬ 
position. * * * The leaves belong to the soil. Without 
them it cannot preserve its fertility, and cannot furnish nutri¬ 
ment to the beech. The trees languish, produce seed inca¬ 
pable of germination, and the spontaneous self-sowing, which 
is an indispensable element in the best systems of sylviculture, 
fails altogether in the bared and impoverished soil.” * 
* Yaupell, Bogens Indvandring i de JDansJce Shove, pp. 29, 46. Yaupell 
further observes, on the page last quoted : “ The removal of leaves is in¬ 
jurious to the forest, not only because it retards the growth of trees, but 
still more because it disqualifies the soil for the production of particular 
species. When the beech languishes, and the development of its branches 
is less vigorous and its crown less spreading, it becomes unable to resist 
the encroachments of the fir. This latter tree thrives in an inferior soil, 
and being no longer stifled by the thick foliage of the beech, it spreads 
gradually through the wood, while the beech retreats before it and finally 
perishes.” 
The study of the natural order of succession in forest trees is of the 
utmost importance in sylviculture, because it guides us in the selection of 
