jo Forestry Quarterly. 



for. Indeed, real working plans are mostly absent, but the con- 

 dition of the woods and the maps give an insight into the poverty 

 of the methods employed, especially in locating the orderly pro- 

 gress of fellings and in the determination of the felling budget. 

 The working block is called series — a series of annual fellings, to 

 be managed as a unit and often coinciding with a forest ranger's 

 beat (triage). Besides, there is a division into sections — parts of 

 a forest under one system of management (taillis, futaie regulicre, 

 futaie jardinee, etc.), while the series is divided into periodic 

 areas (affectations) , in the forest visited into 8 periods of 25 

 years each. It is a most characteristic principle of the French 

 working plan, that these periodic areas should as far as possible 

 be laid together (the opposite of the Saxon method where the 

 dismemberment of the felling areas is most developed). To se- 

 cure this arrangement great sacrifices have been and are being 

 made by cutting unripe stands or leaving ripe ones, the schematic 

 arrangement of the felling series being considered the most need- 

 ful condition : the result is a collocation of large areas of the same 

 age classes. In Germany, under Hartig's lead the same tendency 

 existed, at least in the beech forests, but has long been abandoned 

 as regards a severe adhesion to the rule. The results of such 

 extensive regeneration and uniform age class areas are increased 

 clanger from insect pests, fire and especially windfall. This latter 

 danger has, then, already begun to show itself in the French oak 

 and fir forests : so extensive has been the wind damage in the fir 

 forests of the Vosges that the windfirmness of the species as com- 

 pared with the shallow rooted spruce is doubted. The oaks, too, 

 which show a shallower root system than is usual, suffer on the 

 regeneration areas. A discussion of the conditions of wind dam- 

 age follows. 



The determination of the felling budget and of the rotation is 

 next discussed. In the oak forests visited, the rotation was 

 found to be 200 years in 8 affectations of 25 years, with a felling 

 budget of only 47 cubic feet total, of which 28 cubic feet work- 

 wood, a very modest amount, surely not equal to the increment. 

 While the stands show a large number of trees and large volumes, 

 the diameters are not what could have been secured under the ex- 

 cellent growth conditions. No tangible reasons for this long 

 rotation could be given by the managers. 



On paper, the forest administration declares the maximum 



