748 XLVI. VERBENACEAE 



the dominant shoots were measured, corresponding to those left in the case 

 of the thinned stools. The folloAving statement shows the results of the measure- 

 ments : 



Tectona grandis : measurements in thiniaed and unthinned coppice, North 



Kanara. 



, , T. i r Increment per annum. 



Interval after Percentage oi tt " Vit C-r*V> 



Plot Age at time which remeasure- shoots thinned Height. uirth. 



No. of thinning, ment was made. out. Thinned. Unthinned. Thinned. Unthinned. 



years years. per cent. ft. ft. in. in. 



1 ' 3 3 64 211 219 M3 1-05 



2 7 2 67 1-05 0-98 0-82 0-62 



3 9 4 .. .. .. 0-82 0-77 



4 15 4 .. .. .. 0-45 0-35 



These figures show a girth increment in favour of the shoots of the thinned 

 coppice, though the effect of the thinning is hardly so great as might be expected. 

 Mr. Edie remarks, regarding this experiment, that thinnings in coppice are 

 probably advisable, but that these should not be undertaken until the coppice 

 is at least ten years old, partly in order to preserve the cover and partly because 

 if shoots are thinned out in young coppice new shoots take their place. 



2. High forest systems of the selection type. The treatment under high 

 forest of vast areas in which teak, a strong light-demander, occurs scattered 

 among numerous other species in constantly varying types of forest in which 

 bamboos often play an important part, is by no means an easy problem, and 

 the method of treatment hitherto applied almost universally to the extensive 

 teak forests of Burma and to the better classes of forest on the west coast of 

 India is in no way a solution of that problem. This method of treatment has 

 been termed the selection system, but it is not the true selection system of 

 Europe, since it does not provide for the attainment of normality or ensure 

 a sufficienc}^ of reproduction, nor does it even take the silvicultural require- 

 ments of the teak into consideration. Briefly stated, this method of treatment 

 consists in working over a given tract of forest in a definite felling cycle and 

 cutting out those teak trees which have reached a certain minimum girth, 

 with the proviso that where teak reproduction is absent, seed-bearers should 

 be left ; in most cases the maximum number of trees to be removed in any 

 year or period of years is fixed. This system was adopted in Burma in the 

 early days of forest organization as being the only practicable method of 

 utilizing, under some sort of control, the stock of mature teak over the exten- 

 sive areas of forest to be dealt with. As a provisional method of treatment 

 it was the only one to adopt under the circumstances. Yet with the exception 

 of one or two recent innovations, which will be noted below, it has continued 

 to be the system in force throughout Burma down to the present day, and it 

 must continue to be practised over considerable areas for some time to come, 

 since the introduction of more rational systems of management over the vast 

 areas to be dealt with must take time. 



It has never been denied that the cutting out of all mature teak trees 

 from among their numerous associates will in time lead to a serious diminution 

 of the ])rincipal species, and hence working plans have prescribed the removal 

 t)f inferior species in the interests of immature teak of all ages. But in actual 



