184 MODERN FOREST ECONOMY. 



in succession, having regard to the direction of the prevail- 

 ing winds. When a block arrives in the last or oldest 

 stage, felling is commenced by what is called a preparatory 

 or seed clearing, which js very slight, and scarcely to be 

 distinguished from the ordinary thinning carried on in the 

 former periods. This is followed by a clearing for light in 

 the first year after seed has fallen (the beech seeds only 

 every fourth or fifth year) with the objects of 1st, pre- 

 paring the ground to receive the seed ; 2nd, allowing the 

 seed to germinate as it falls ; 3rd, affording sufficient light 

 to the young seedlings. The finest trees are, as a rule, 

 left standing, with the two-fold object of depositing the 

 seed and sheltering the young trees as they come up. If 

 there be a good seed year and sufficient rain, the ground 

 should be thickly covered with seedlings within two or 

 three years after the first clearing, Nature being assisted 

 when necessary by hand sowing, transplanting from 

 patches where the seedlings have come up very quickly, 

 to the thinner spots, and other measures of forest craft. 

 When the ground is pretty well covered the old trees are 

 felled and carefully removed, so as to do as little damage 

 as possible to the new crop, and the block recommences 

 life, so to speak, nothing further being done until the first 

 thinning. The above is briefly the whole process of 

 natural reproduction, which is the simplest and most 

 economical of all systems, and especially applicable to 

 forests of deciduous trees. The period between the first 

 or preparatory clearing and the final clearing varies from 

 ten to thirty years, the more gradual and protracted 

 method being now most in favour, particularly in the 

 Black Forest, where the old trees are removed so gradually 

 that there can scarcely be said to be any clearing at all, the 

 new crop being well advanced before the last of the parent 

 trees is removed. This approximates to " felling by selec- 

 tion," [Jardinage], which is the primitive system of working 

 forests in all countries, under which, in its rude form, the 

 forester proceeds without method, selecting such timber as 

 suits him, irrespective of its relation to the forest incre- 



