cH.ni THINNINGS AND PRUNING 245 



to the standing crop will be minimised, and the shock 

 caused by partial or total isolation will also be smaller. 



One of the greatest obstacles to the execution of 

 thinnings in many tropical forests is the difficulty of 

 obtaining a sale for the produce so obtained. In a 

 country where most of the inhabitants live in mud huts, 

 the roofs of which are made of thatch laid over thin 

 sticks or bamboos, and the furniture of which is limited 

 to the barest necessities, the local sale will also be small ; 

 and the transport of any but exceptionally fine timber 

 to a distance may cost a great deal more than the price 

 obtained. It is only in the neighbourhood of larger 

 towns, or where steamers or railways, factories or 

 mines, create a demand for smaller wood, such as posts, 

 small beams, rafters, mine-props, and firewood, that such 

 operations are directly remunerative. As the forester is 

 usually expected to make the forests under his charge 

 pay, he finds difficulty in obtaining funds for operations 

 which, although they will be for the benefit of the forest 

 in the long run, show an immediate deficit. In places 

 where the produce obtained from thinnings finds an 

 immediate sale, these not only enable the forester to 

 give the forest -owner a constantly recurring revenue, 

 but they increase the productiveness of timber per unit 

 of area ; that is to say, that when ultimately the regen- 

 eration fellings are made, more timber and better timber 

 are obtained than if the forest had been left untouched 

 while the trees grew to maturity. 



The subject of pruning has already been touched 

 upon in the preceding chapter with reference to 

 cleanings. Although in tropical forests pruning is an 

 operation which has not been paid much attention to, 

 owing to the large number of other urgent matters 

 which have required the attention and time of foresters, 

 it is necessary to know how pruning should be carried 

 out. 



In a crowded wood of trees of the same age the 

 lower branches begin to die out after leaf-canopy has 

 been formed, and as the trees continue to lengthen 



