CONTINENTAL NOTES - FRANCE. 55 



thinnings. This is a sound principle, but the French writer states 

 that actually the crops look too close, and appear to be suffer- 

 ing from it. 



They underplant the pine with beech to enrich the soil, to 

 keep down the weed growth, and to mitigate fires. This 

 understage (1760 plants to the acre — so it is stated) will be cut 

 at the same time as the pine, and experience shows that the 

 financial return from this undercrop pays well. It is, however, 

 only put in thirty to sixty years after the pine. 



About twenty-five special stems per hectare are kept standing 

 beyond the final felling (at 120 years). About half of these die, 

 but the other half grow well, so far as they have been able to tell, 

 from immediately after the final felling of the crop till the new 

 crop has reached the pole stage, when their rate of growth falls 

 off. There are specimens of 200 years in good form. 



With regard to the oak, originally the French trusted to 

 natural regeneration, and did not sufficiently fill up failures by 

 planting. They succeeded well at times : this with the help of 

 pigs to make a good seed-bed. The Germans for a time tried 

 natural regeneration, but feared to open the cover because of 

 the weeds, and seemed to expect natural seedlings of oak to 

 stand the cover for some five years. This did not happen gener- 

 ally, but there was sometimes success with oak sowings on 

 prepared ground under the cover. But planting is now 

 the rule. 



The thinnings begin at 30 years, and recur every 8 or 10 years. 

 They produce rather less outturn than in the case of the pine. 

 In the course of these thinnings the idea is to choose special 

 stems which are to be carried through to the end of the rotation. 

 The special isolated stems are left every 6 or 8 metres, and, as 

 the writer remarks, they might with advantage be marked 

 with a ring of paint, so that at each thinning they could 

 be picked up at once. The isolation of these stems is not of 

 course excessive, and comes to pass gradually. The idea is 

 only to choose these stems when the crop has reached some 

 fifty years. 



As with the pine, an understage of beech is introduced. When 

 the oak is sixty years old they bring in 7000 beech per hectare. 

 This is 2800 to the acre, and how they find room for it one 

 wonders, but this is what is stated. 



The Germans (who when they first came cut the larger oaks 



