376 FUTAIE, OR FULL-GROWTH SYSTEM, 
in wet soils, languish and die before reaching the fiftieth year.” * 
These ages are certainly below the average of those of American 
forest-trees, and are greatly exceeded in very numerous well- 
attested instances of isolated trees in Europe. 
The former mode of treating the futaie, called the gar des 
system, was to cut the trees ini idually as they arene at 
maturity, but, in the best regulated forests, this practice has 
been abandoned for the German method, which embraces not 
only the securing of the largest immediate profit, but the re- 
planting of the forest, and the care of the young growth. This 
is effected in the case of a forest, whether natural or artificial, 
which is to be subjected to regular management, by three 
operations. The first of these consists in felling about one- 
third of the trees, in such way as to leave convenient spaces for 
the growth of seedlings. The remaining two-thirds are relied 
upon to replant the vacancies, by natural sowing, which they 
seldom or never fail to do. The seedlings are watched, are 
thinned out when too dense, and the ill-formed and sickly, as 
well as those of species of inferior value, and the shrubs and 
thorns which might otherwise choke or too closely shade them, 
are pulled up. When they have attained suflicient strength 
and development of foliage to require, or at least to bear, more 
light and air, the second step is taken, by removing a suitable 
proportion of the old trees which had been spared at the first eut- 
ting; and when, finally, the younger trees are hardened enough 
to bear frost nae sun without other protection than that which 
they mutually give to each other, the remainder of the original 
forest is felled, and the wood now consists wholly of young 
and vigorous trees. This result is obtained after about twenty 
years. At convenient periods, the unhealthy stocks and those 
injured by wind or other accidents are removed, and in some 
instances the growth of the remainder is pr omoted by irrigation 
or by fertilizing applications.| When the forest is approaching 
* Etudes Forestiores, p. 89. 
{+ The grounds which it is most important to clothe with wood as a conser- 
vative influence, and which, also, can best be spared from agricultural use, 
