54 Forestry Quarterly. 



The advantages of the above method are: (i) Its elasticity; 

 the cut can be made as Hght or as heavy as is desired (up to the 

 Hmit of securing good reproduction) by merely adjusting the 

 length of the period. It is therefore equally practical for large 

 sales in regions of difficult accessibility and for small sales in 

 easily accessible country. (2) The forest can, if desired, be cut 

 over to utilize all the overmature material without regulation of 

 the cut and then be put on a sustained yield basis without a long 

 wait. (3) It lends itself more readily to regulation by rough 

 methods. (4) It is the only system which, over large areas, will 

 work out in practice with the distribution of age classes actually 

 found. 



The large even-aged groups covering an acre or more, which 

 form the exception, will be treated separately within the above 

 method without altering its principle. The system for these 

 groups will have to be one adapted to even aged stands, either 

 clear cutting with seed trees, or the shelterwood method. The 

 shelterwood method is preferable, but not always practicable. If 

 the felling period is long, 40 years or over, and the stand so over- 

 mature that it will greatly deteriorate before next felling period, 

 it will be necessary to make a clear cutting with seed trees, and 

 the difficulty here will generally be to find enough vigorous seed 

 trees to leave. Often most of the trees left will be lost before 

 the next cut, and will constitute an investment in reproduction. 

 If, on the other hand, the group is mature but still vigorous, and 

 the felling period not over 40 years, the shelterwood method will 

 be feasible. Here approximately half to two-thirds of the stand 

 is to be removed, and the more vigorous trees left for growth and 

 seed production ; at the next cut these trees will be utilized. 

 Under either method the space occupied by the group will be left 

 covered with an approximately even-aged young stand, which 

 can not be cut again till the end of the rotation. 



Rotation and Felling Period. 



Under the silvicultural system recommended the important 

 consideration is not the rotation but the felling period. Under a 

 clear cutting system* the stand is cut when it has reached ap- 



*The shelterwood system is properly speaking a clear cutting sj'stem, 

 because, although the stand is removed in two or more fellings, the system 

 secures an approximately even-aged reproduction just as much as does 

 clear cutting with seed trees. 



