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in order to allow of the produce being taken out annually, without intermission 

 and in equal quantities, so that a regular and sustained income may be drawn 

 from the forest. For example, a simple coppice thirty acres in extent, of which 

 the crop is to be felled at the age of thirty years, might either be entirely cut 

 down at one time, and then allowed to grow up again for thirty years, or, which 

 would be found much more convenient, it might be divided into thirty one-acre 

 compartments, each of which is to be felled in succession, so that by taking one 

 plot each year, the whole area would be worked over in thirty years. The 

 working plan must then, in the first place, prescribe the age at which the trees 

 are to be felled, with reference to the average number of years that they take to 

 arrive at maturity, or to attain the required size, and it must then fix the yield, 

 or the amount of wood to be annually removed, this quantity being expressed 

 either in the form of an area to be cut over, or a number of cubic feet of wood 

 to be taken out. But in the case of a high forest managed under the selection 

 method, it is suffiicient to fix the number of trees of a minimum size to be cut 

 out annually. 



The provisions of a working plan vary according to the nature of the forest 

 to which it relates. In the case of the simple coppice instanced above, the 

 first thing to do would be to obtain a map showing the principal features of the 

 ground, such as the edge of the plateau, the stream, and the road. The area 

 would then be broken up, for purposes of examination and description, into tem- 

 porary plots, each plot comprising a portion of forest more or less homogeneous 

 in its composition. This study of the crop would enable the area to be divided 

 into the thirty permanent compartments above alluded to, and it would also 

 determine the order in which they should be numbered, so that the older portions 

 might be cut first. It is evident that if one of these be cut every year the series 

 of compartments will, after the lapse of thirty years, contain forest of all ages, 

 from one to thirty years ; and if the annual felling be invariably made in the 

 oldest compartment, it is evident that the age of the crop cut will always be 

 thirty years. 



To make a working plan for a regular high forest, to be treated by successive 

 thinnings, is not quite such a simple matter. If the forest is of great extent, it 

 is, first of all, divided into two or more series or sections, each of which is dealt 

 with separately. .After the examination and description of the temporary plots, 

 the section is divide I into a number of equal compartments called affectations 

 and when the ground has once been completely worked over the crop on each of 

 these will always be, within certain limits, in the same stage of development, and 

 subjected to the same kind of treatment. Thus, if the trees are to be felled at 

 the age of 120 years, and there are six compartments, the sixth may contain the 

 young growth, aged from one to twenty years ; the fifth young poles from 

 twenty-one to forty years old, and so on ; the first containing the old trees which 

 are to be felled. The compartments having been formed, each of them is 

 then sub-divided into compartments usually corresponding in number with the 

 years over which the fellings within it are spread (twenty in this case), and 

 while the trees are being cut in the first compartment, clearings and thinnings, 

 of various recognized degrees are going on in the compartments of the others, until 

 each in its turn arrives at the age at which the trees are to be removed ; and it is 

 clear that in this case also the forest will ultimately contain a due proportion of 

 trees of all ages, from one to 120 years, which is an essential condition. 



The working plan prescribes the order in which all this is to be done, and it 

 lays down the number of cubic feet of timber of the oldest class which are to be 

 taken out annually from the first or oldest compartment, so that the entire stock 

 on it may be removed within the first period of twenty years, windfalls and dead 



