600 Agricultural Journal of Victoria. 



This system of felliug may prove the best to adopt lu the Vic- 

 torian forests, as owing to the indigenous species being chiefly one 

 family, and the varieties being gregarious, their seeding will be 

 o-eneral, and so go far to insure a quick and certain re-growth of 

 seedlino-s. On the other hand, in mixed forests of deciduous trees, 

 the seeding of the trees being irregular, it often takes two or three 

 years before restocking of the forest can be considered certain. This 

 gives rise to three separate fellings instead of one. 



This system of working a forest has many advantages : — 



It is a cheap one, as the work is concentrated, supervision is easy, 

 and transport is lessened. 



It insures a re-growth, dense and even, and by that means soon 

 destroys all weeds and grasses, and prevents the erosion of the soil by 

 rain or other causes. 



It is the best system to adopt in a pure forest, such as Victorian 

 forests may be called. 



The 8trip 8ystem. — This is but a modification of the compart- 

 ment system. Instead of felling in large patches the forest is cut in 

 belts or strips. The length of these need not be limited, but the 

 breadth is of great importance, and must be entirely ruled by the 

 contour of the ground and the climatic influence. It is more useful on 

 hilly than plain country, its object being to prevent the destruction 

 of young growth by wind storms. In cutting the strips care must 

 be taken that they start at that portion of the forest which is opposite 

 to the prevailing wind direction and at right angles to it. This 

 System also prevents the erosion of soil that so frequeutly occurs on a 

 steep face when denuded of timber. The great drawback to this 

 method is the expense of the operation, the strips being long and 

 narrow necessitate costly transport, though this may be to a certain 

 extent simplified on steep ground. As has been said before, the 

 object of all these systems is to encourage natural regeneration by 

 seed, and also to utilise the forest produce to the best advantage of 

 the forest itself. 



Coppice. — We now take regeneration by shoots and suckers. 

 Fortimately this method is one that has proved most successful in 

 Victoria. In fact, it has been the saving of the State forests. Stool 

 shoots or coppice shoots are the only ones we need consider, as the 

 eucalyptus shows best results in this way. The shoots grow from 

 either dormant buds, or from the callus at the edge of the cut, where 

 a tree has been felled close to the ground. 



The success of this system rests chiefly, in Victoria, on the age of 

 the tree operated on. As a rule, as soon as a tree has reached its 

 principal height growth, stool shoots are no longer produced, so care 

 must be exercised to cut only those trees that are still growing in 

 height. A diametei- growth would be the simplest method to adopt. 

 It would probably be found that trees I foot and under in diameter 

 would coppice best, up to 2 feet many would miss or produce useless 

 shoots, and over 2 feet few would produce any. To what age a forest 



