364 FUTAIE, OR FULL-GROWTH SYSTEM. 



fatal objection still, is, tliat the roots of trees moU not bear more 

 than two or tliree, or at most four cuttings of their shoots before 

 their vitality is exhausted, and the wood can then be restored 

 only by replanting entirely. The period of cutting coppices 

 varies in Europe from fifteen to forty years, according to soil, 

 species and rapidity of growth. 



In the futaie, or fuU-growth system, the trees are allowed to 

 stand as long as they continue in healthy and vigorous growth. 

 This is a shorter period than would be at first supposed, when we 

 consider the advanced age and great dimensions to which, under 

 favorable circumstances, many forest-trees attain in temperate 

 clunates. But, as every observing person f amihar with the forest 

 is aware, these are exceptional cases, just as are instances of great 

 longevity or of gigantic stature among men. Able vegetable 

 physiologists have maintained that the tree, like most fish and 

 reptiles, has no natural limit of life or of growth, and that the 

 only reason Avhy our oaks and our pines do not reach the age of 

 twenty centuries and the height of a hundred fathoms, is, that in 

 the multitude of accidents to which they are exposed, the chances 

 of their attaining to such a length of years and to such dimen- 

 sions of growth are millions to one against them. But another 

 explanation of this fact is possible. In trees affected by no dis- 

 coverable external cause of death, decay begins at the topmost 

 branches, which seem to wither and die for want of nutriment. 

 The mysterious force by which the sap is carried from the roots 

 to the utmost twigs, can not be conceived to be unlimited in 

 power, and it is probable that it differs in different species, so 

 that while it may sujQice to raise the fluid to the height of five 

 hundred feet in the eucalyptus, it may not be able to carry it 

 beyond one hundred and fifty in the oak. The limit may be 

 different, too, in different trees of the same species, not from de- 

 fective organization in those of inferior growth, but from more 

 or less favorable conditions of soil, nourishment and exposure. 

 Whenever a tree attains to the limit beyond which its circulating 

 fluids can not rise, we may suppose that decay begins, and death 

 follows from want of nutrition at the extremities, and from the 

 same causes which bring about the same results in animals of 

 limited size — such, for example, as the interruption of functions 

 essential to life, in consequence of the clogging up of ducts by 



