116 FORESTRY IN EASTERN RUSSIA. 



In the exploitation of a forest according to La Methode 

 a Tire et Aire, when it was practised in France and in 

 Germany previous to the introduction of forest exploita- 

 tion, in accordance with the advanced forest science of the 

 day, beside which it has become antiquated, the number 

 of years which the trees would require to grow to reach 

 the age at which they should be felled, whether coppice 

 wood or timber were desired, was divided into some one or 

 other of the factors of this number ; and the forest was 

 divided into a corresponding number of portions, one of 

 which was felled in the course of one of the lesser periods, 

 in the expectation that each in turn would be again 

 covered with trees of the desired age by the time the cycle 

 of fellings was completed. 



The initiation of this method of exploitation did not 

 originate in France or in Germany in the promulgation of 

 what is known as the famous Ordinance of 1669. This 

 Ordinance assumes it as being already known and prac- 

 tised. But to this Ordinance we are indebted for its 

 introduction into many lands. 



In the Introduction to the Study of Modern Forest Economy 

 I have stated : 



It is more easy to make intelligible the treatment so 

 designated than it is to render in English the designation 

 given to it. The following may be taken as supplying a 

 rough and rude illustration of it in its application to a 

 coppice wood. If the coppice be one which may 

 profitably be cut down every twenty years, by dividing 

 it into twenty equal or equivalent portions, and 

 cutting one, but only one of these, each year, there may be 

 obtained a constant supply of wood, the division cut in the 

 first year being ready again for the axe in the twenty- first 

 year of the operation, and again in the forty-first year, 

 while the other divisions followed in their order. 



This mode of exploitation has been extensively adopted 

 in the management of coppice woods in Russia, though 

 Jardinage is generally followed in the felling of timber. 

 I have found that there on many estates held by private 



