250 SYLVICULTURE IN THE TROPICS n.m 



necessary to keep some unsound or badly shaped trees 

 where there is nothing better to cover the ground or 

 to bear seed. It is also a fact, to which many foresters 

 find it hard to be reconciled, that the owner of the 

 forest expects to realise immediate revenue from his 

 forests, and that operations which are likely to bring a 

 return in the dim and distant future, however excellent 

 they may be, are not easy to support ; that, in fact, 

 funds for carrying costly operations which bring no 

 immediate return are not easy to obtain. The improve- 

 ment-fellings then resolve themselves into a very 

 miscellaneous operation. Fernandez 1 thus describes 

 an improvement-felling : 



"It is thus evident that an improvement-felling is 

 not an elementary operation of a special kind, but is 

 essentially a composite one, combining in itself the 

 attributes and objects of every kind of felling already 

 treated of. At points where utilisable advance-growth 

 exists, it will assume the character of an after-felling 

 or of a jardinage cutting. Where the crop is too 

 dense, it will become a preparatory-felling, or a thinning 

 or a cleaning according to the age of the component 

 individuals. In other places it may partake of the 

 nature of a seed-felling. Where frost and other dan- 

 gerous atmospheric influences are not to be feared and 

 the soil cannot suffer from exposure, there a more or 

 less large clearing may be made, if the whole of the 

 standing stock is unsound or deteriorating and early 

 regeneration is certain. In such places the younger 

 individuals capable of throwing up good coppice-shoots 

 should be carefully cut back. Young damaged stems 

 of valuable species should also be cut back, where the 

 regrowth from them would improve the constitution of 

 the crop. In frosty localities, where the forest is open, 

 it is useless to attempt any cutting back, as the new 

 shoots are bound to get frost-bitten in their turn and 

 in the end prove no better than the original individuals. 

 In such places the only resource left is to allow the 



1 Op. cit. p. 509. 



