Silviculture Practice. 105 



seed; the cutting for light; and the removal cutting. 

 By and by, a second cut was made during the seed 

 year, and the number of fellings to secure gradual 

 removal were increased, so that, by 1801, this system 

 seems to have been pretty nearly perfected to its 

 modern conditions. The best exposition of this 

 Femelschlagbetrieb (shelterwood system), as then de- 

 veloped, is to be found in Karl Heyer's Handbook, 

 1854. 



The method was unfortunately extended by Burgs- 

 dorf (1787) to the Northern pineries with a seventy 

 year period of rotation. Within ten years, however, 

 he recognized its inappropriateness, and modified 

 it by instructions to leave only six to twelve seed 

 trees per acre. His successor, Kropff, reduced the 

 number of seed trees to four or five, which were to 

 be removed within two or three years. In spite of 

 the development of this more rational method, the 

 practitioners under Hartig's approval, held mainly 

 to a dark position even for pine, much in the manner 

 of a selection forest, which produced a poor growth of 

 oppressed seedlings, retarding for a long time the 

 development of the pineries. 



In spruce or fir, either a pure selection forest or a 

 strip system was employed. Attempts at a shelter- 

 wood system were made, but experience with the 

 wind danger soon taught the lesson that this was not 

 a proper method with shallow-rooted species. Even 

 Hartig preferred for spruce clearing and planting, and 

 this is still the most favored method with that species. 

 For the deep-rooted and shade-enduring fir the 

 shelterwood method with a long regeneration period 



