14 



As mulberry and sissoo firewood are stacked separately it is usual to fell 

 the crops in two stages, first the mulberry, with which all other species un- 

 suitable for standards are included, such as fardah, jand, van, phuldi, etc., is 

 felled and stacked. When this has been done the standards are marked for 

 reservation and the remainder of the crop is felled, finally the excess of stand- 

 ards and any standards broken or damaged are felled and the work is complete. 

 This plan may suitably be continued in future, but as the number of species in 

 the plantation increases it will be more difficult to arrange as it will be neces- 

 sary to reserve siris, toon, eucalyptus, Gmelina arborea, etc., as standards to 

 make up for a deficiency of sissoo, but it is clearly useless to reserve such trees 

 as Persian lilac or tallow and a pure coppice would be preferable to a stored 

 coppice with such trees as standards. 



38. Hitherto following European practice it has been customary to 



dress the stools after felling, but during the last 

 few years this practice has been given up. No- 

 thing can be urged in favour of stool-dressing as even assuming a dressed stool 

 produced more vigorous coppice shoots than an undressed one, which is not the 

 case, seedling reproduction of mulberry is so vigorous that coppice reproduction 

 could be dispensed with altogether and a pure seedling crop will undoubtedly 

 give a better yield of timber at 20 years old than will a coppice crop. Stool- 

 dressing will therefore be given up in future as it has been during the past 

 few years, but low cutting must be insisted on. 



39. In f ery many compartments it will be found quite impossible 

 f tncf rcu ' * ^^ sufficient sissoo stems to leave as stand- 

 ards to replace those felled. In such cases in 



Mr. Hoghton's working plan (paragraph 22) the reservation of mulberry 

 standards was prescribed. This has proved to be a mistake and in future 

 no mulberry standards should be reserved. Most of the objections to mul- 

 berry as a standard apply equally to Persian lilac and this species should 

 also not be reserved. Persian lilac stems grown in dense crops for 20 years and 

 then suddenly opened out and exposed as standards would almost all be thrown 

 or broken by wind. If any survived for another 20 years they would probably 

 become hollow. During the past few years it has been the custom in order to 

 try to make up for a deficiency of standards, in the absence of young sissoo 

 stems, to leave almost all the standards which were found in the crop at the 

 time of felling. This is a great mistake and in many coupes now about 3 7 

 years old\ numbers of standards have fallen and rotted on the ground, as a 

 fallen stem is so difficult to extract from a dense young coppice crop that it 

 is usually not attempted. Thus much valuable mature timber has not been 

 cut and has been allowed to rot in the plantation instead. Instances can be 

 found of trees being left in group in order to try and obtain 15 standards per 

 acre on the average, thus in places the standards are so close together that they 

 have prevented the satisfactory growth of the mulberry and elsewhere in the 

 same compartment there may be no standards at all. 



40. In 1919-20 when the crop is being cut for the third time it will be 

 . , , . . . , , necessary to cut almost every standard in the 



Artificial replacement of itandardi. . J , ,. , , it i i i 



coupe including those on the outer boundary and 



on road -sides since standards which have already gone through three rotations 

 are f \x\\y mature and if left for a fourth rotation of 20 years would run a 

 great risk of dying before the end of the period. Hence such standards 

 should ordinarily be felled and not kept merely to make up for a deficiency in 

 standards of smaller size. In many compartments there is practically nothing 

 but mulberry and Persian lilac in the underwood and as neither of these can be 

 left as standards there will be scarcely any standards left after the felling, con- 

 sequently the standards will have to be replaced artificially. In replacing 

 standards sufficient should be ^provided to furnish 15 20 standards per acre 

 as well as a single line along compartment roads and a double line along the 

 outer boundary. The best method of doing this remains to be ascertained, and 

 in offering some suggestions on the subject the choice of the species to be grown 

 also be considered, 



