220 SYLVICULTURE IN THE TROPICS pt.ii 



and during a period equivalent to that time all the 

 exploitable trees are taken, as well as unsound and 

 deformed trees of other girth classes. During that 

 time, also, those of the next class will have grown to 

 exploitable size, and provision for a young crop, by 

 natural regeneration, will have been made by the care 

 with which the fellings have been conducted. It is 

 evident that, where the stock of trees of the second 

 girth class is too scanty, it will not be possible to take 

 all the exploitable trees, some of which must be left 

 for a further period ; also that, should these exploitable 

 trees be found near blanks in the forest or where the 

 felling of a large tree would lead to risk of damage 

 owing to exposure or erosion, they should remain 

 standing. In such places, even deformed and unsound 

 trees are useful, and should be left. 



This method is the one which is most commonly 

 chosen for forests which are newly taken under scientific 

 management, especially those which have suffered from 

 uncontrolled and badly conducted operations, also in 

 places where the demand is limited, whether as regards 

 some of the species or as regards the crop as a whole. 

 In exposed situations it is perhaps the only one which 

 can be successfully adopted, and in Europe it is generally 

 employed on wind-swept and steep slopes in mountainous 

 countries. 



Where experience is limited, as it is with tropical 

 forests which vary so enormously, and few of which have 

 been under scientific treatment for a long period, and 

 most of which have only a small percentage of their 

 produce marketable, it is difficult to say what other 

 method of treatment might be substituted for the 

 selection method under improved conditions of demand 

 and of supervision. Clear - fellings will probably be 

 generally unsuitable to the Tropics, owing to risks due 

 to the sudden exposure of the soil ; and, among the 

 uniform methods, it will probably be found that the 

 group method will be the one that most naturally 

 adapts itself to a forest which has been treated by the 



