TECTONA 747 



teak does not reach any great size, the system of coppice-with-standards is 

 largely followed. This is particularly the case in the Bombay Presidency, 

 where a large proportion of the teak-bearing forests are worked under this 

 system. Coppice-with-standards is also the system followed in j)arts of Madras 

 and the Central Provinces. 



In Bombay the coppice rotation hitherto most commonly adopted is one 

 of 40 years, though the rotations actually vary from 30 to 60 years, and recently 

 the long rotation of 80 years has been adopted in two of the Kanara working 

 plans. The rotation for standards, in the few cases where it has been fixed, 

 is one of 60 or 80 years, being twice the rotation for coppice. The number of 

 standards to be left, according to working plans prescriptions, varies from 15 

 to 45 per acre. In the Golihalli-Godoli teak forests of Belgaum the system of 

 simple coppice is in force, standards being reserved only where the growth is 

 exceptionally good. The opinion is gaining ground in Bombay that some of 

 the forests hitherto worked under coppice-mth-standards, particularly the 

 Thana forests, could be worked more profitably and successfully under simple 

 coppice with a long rotation, namely 80 years, no standards being reserved : 

 this does not, however, apply to very steep or poorly stocked hill-slopes. 

 This opinion has been formed on the ground that clear -feUings are more suit- 

 able for teak than any form of two-storied forest, that teak coppices to an 

 advanced age, and that if cultural operations are properly carried out there is 

 no necessity to retain seed-bearers. In areas worked as coppice-with-standards, 

 again, the opinion seems to be now prevailing that 15 to 20 standards per 

 acre, as a maximum, are ample if the coppice is not to suffer from domination. 



In the Central Provinces a system known as partial coppice or coppice 

 selection is practised, for the most part in remote coupes where there is only 

 a Kmited demand. Its main object is to replace deteriorating and badly 

 shaped stems by straight coppice shoots, and with this end in view such stems 

 are coppiced flush with the ground, even where the coppicing of the whole 

 coupe is impracticable. At the same time, standards are reserved as in the 

 ordinary coppice-with-standards system. The main felling is followed by the 

 systematic cutting back of badly shaped or otherwise undesirable stems. 

 These cutting back operations for the improvement of the young crop are 

 found to be most useful in the forests of the Central Provinces, where the teak 

 is so often misshapen, owing to past maltreatment. 



Although teak coppices extremely well, seedhng reproduction in the 

 Central Provinces is often very poor, and it is by no means certain that repeated 

 coppicing can be carried out indefinitely ; this has given rise to some apprehen- 

 sion as to the future, and has indicated the desirabihty of introducing seedhng 

 reproduction artificially in coppice coupes where natural seedling reproduction 

 is wanting. 



Mr. A. G. Edie ^ has recorded the results of an experiment carried out in 

 the pole areas of North Kanara to find out the effect of thinning out the weaker 

 shoots of a stool on the subsequent growth of the remaining and stronger 

 shoots. In four plots altogether 131 stools were thinned and 131 left unthinned. 

 The resulting shoots were measured the year of thinning and subsequently at 

 an interval of two to four years, but in the case of the unthinned stools only 



1 Ind. Forester, xlii (1916), p. 157. 



