114 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



are satisfied, so much the better ; but for our part, let us keep 

 our complete canopies filled with our best trees. 



A third danger is that of a too heavy thinning, making openings 

 in silver fir woods, gutting a high forest of oaks, destroying the 

 due mixture of secondary species, or simply separating the stems 

 too widely. The result is a shock to the constitution of the forests 

 and a crisis in its existence. . What our long-lived forest trees 

 really require is a regular and sustained development : the proof 

 is easily seen by comparison of the two- or three-hundred year-old 

 crops that still exist in a few forgotten, out-of-the-way forests. 



From another point of view, heavy thinnings, but still made 

 with prudence and frequently repeated, furnish a good deal of 

 produce, which supplements and sustains the regular yield, some- 

 times makes it possible to await the due period of maturity, and 

 becomes as important a factor in the revenue as it is in the 

 treatment. It is known that a beech forest, according to soil, 

 may give thinnings amounting to half as much, or even quite as 

 much, as the principal produce. But the quantity can never be 

 determined beforehand, since it depends on the ideas of the 

 operator. In case of competition for the produce, a case of 

 usufruct for instance, the question arises, " Who shall be judge 

 between the parties ? Who shall see that the owner cuts enough 1 

 Who shall see that the right-holders do not get too much 1 " Who 

 can decide such a technical question but a skilled, professional 

 forester, called in specially and sworn to the task. The rules 

 and limits by which he will be bound may vary within wide 

 limits from one place to the next, here 500 to 600 cubic feet may 

 come out of half an acre, there nothing at all. Thinnings are 

 becoming more and more matters of daily practice, and though 

 they are at present ignored by the Civil Code, the day is not far 

 distant when the owner of the bare land will be forced to surrender 

 their produce to the usufruct beneficiary or the holder of the ground 

 rent (emphyteutic tenure); it is the opening of a new state of 

 things, which the twentieth century can only emphasise and confirm. 



Lastly, the value of small material is falling to nothing, and 

 that of all classes of firewood is similarly affected, whilst every 

 kind of timber is more and more sought after. The deduction is 

 self-evident. The future is for High Forests, complete high 

 forests ; standards over coppice with long rotation ; plantations 

 of conifers, all kinds of timber trees. The future is, therefore, 

 also for thinnings. 



