30 The Natural Regeneration of Forests. 



and are of good quality, ma\- be left for another rotation. 

 The advantages of the compartment system are that the work is 

 carried out in a short period, and there is therefore little loss of 

 increment from delay. The work of removal and cost of main- 

 taining roads, etc., is less, operations being more concentrated 

 than in the selection or group systems. 



IV. — Lastly, we come to the Strip system without a 

 shelter wood. In this, the area to be regenerated is com- 

 pletely cleared of its crop of timber at one felling. 

 A strip is cut along one side, or it may be two adjacent sides, of 

 a wood or compartment, and this is seeded from the adjoin- 

 ing crop. The strip, as a rule, should not be wider than the 

 height of the standing trees, and the fellings should, of course, 

 proceed in the opposite direction to the prevailing wind. As the 

 wind is the chief agent in carrying the seed, it is necessary, there- 

 fore, that the prevailing wind should be blowing at the time the 

 seed is shed. For this reason, other conditions being favourable, 

 this system could not be adopted in the South or West of Scot- 

 land, at least for Scots pine and spruce, which are likely to form 

 the bulk of our timber crops of the future. The prevailing wind 

 is S.-W., while the cones are opened and the seeds scattered by 

 the E. or N.-E. winds of March. In the N. and N.-E. of Scot- 

 land the method has been practised with a fair measure of success 

 with Scots pine, but there the dry East wind, which opens the 

 cones and scatters the seed, is also the prevailing wind. As soon 

 as one strip has been sufficiently stocked, another strip is cleared 

 and regenerated as before. The advantages of the system are: — 

 (1) Security of density of stork; (2) no interference with young 

 crop in the removal of the old ; (3) full advantage of shelter is 

 obtained. 



We are in all branches of forestry far behind Conti- 

 nental countries, but in this particular branch we are particularly 

 far behind. Where any natural regeneration is to be seen in this 

 district it consists mostly of an irregular growth of birch, usually 

 where something better should be growing. It is there not as a 

 result of a system of natural regeneration, but as an indication of 

 neglect and bad forestry. Before we can begin natural regenera- 

 tion, we will require to grow the crop which is to produce the 

 seed. Few are the mature plantations which have not been so 

 much overthinned that weeds are not already in possession, and 

 natural regeneration consequently impossible. 



