NOTES ON CONTINENTAL FORESTRY IN 1905. 175 
and regenerated on reaching maturity at sixty to eighty years of 
age. In the State Forests such protective strips are to be 
annually inspected before 15th March by a party of forest and 
railway officials, who must report on their condition and on what 
is necessary for their proper maintenance. Such works as fell- 
ing and thinning are then to be done at the cost of the Forest 
Department; but the expenditure on the lopping of branches to a 
height of 5 feet, the removal of the soil-covering, and the hoeing 
of strips, is recoverable from the Railway Department. 
The effect of different degrees of thinning is, of course, receiv- 
ing much attention throughout Germany, and the new experi- 
ments are now being standardised according to the classification 
adopted by the Forestry Investigation Committee, namely :— 
I. Dominating trees, forming part of the leaf-canopy, and con- 
sisting of trees with— 
1. Well-shaped stems and a normally developed crown. 
2. Badly-shaped stems or poorly developed crowns, includ- 
ing those which— 
(2) Suffer from side-pressure; 
(4) Are rough and branching (advance-growth in natural 
regenerations) ; 
(c) Are otherwise badly grown (forked, etc.) ; 
(2) Scour and whip the branches of their neighbours; 
(e) Are diseased and unhealthy trees. 
II. Dominated trees, no longer forming part of the leaf-canopy. 
These include— 
3. Trees not yet overshadowed (unsuppressed). 
4. Suppressed trees that are overshadowed, but are still quite 
capable of vegetation. 
5. Moribund and dead trees. 
Of the above classes, 3 and 4 can often be of use for soil- 
protection, or may help to clean the boles of other trees, but class 5 
is of no use whatever to the rest of the growing-stock—in fact, 
such trees are a positive danger (insects, fungi). With the growth 
of experimental areas in Britain, some general standard is desir- 
able; and it would perhaps be best to accept that determined 
on for Continental Forestry Investigations. 
It will, of course, be many years before the results of experi- 
ments made under this new classification can become available, 
