IJKITISM I <>Ki:vi 1 REES 129 



arises from actuarial motives rather than from sylvicultural 

 requirements. 



In extending the reproductive process often over thirty 

 years and more, the gradual clearance of the parent stems 

 takes place more slowly than is at all necessary or bene- 

 ficial to the younger crop ; but this delay in the removal of 

 the standards has its substantial reason in the financial 

 advantage to be gained by allowing the smaller classes of 

 standards to thicken in girth near the top of the bole, and 

 thus to attain more profitable dimensions. The solution of 

 this problem is more easy in the case of the silver fir than of 

 any other conifer, and the advantage to be gained much 

 more than counterbalances the temporary poverty of annual 

 increment in the young crop. 



It is true that, under this method, the appearance of the 

 young growth after the final clearance of the mature crop 

 resembles a series of patches and groups of different ages 

 and heights : but experience has shown that this is productive 

 of less permanent harm in the case of silver fir than of any 

 other tree, and in central and southern Germany the method 

 continues to enjoy the favour of the most eminent sylvicul- 

 turists. 



Where, however, timber prices are good, and transport is 

 easy and cheap, it by no means follows that the production 

 of equal-aged crops, and their complete removal by total 

 clearance annually, as in the case of Scots pine and spruce, 

 followed by immediate planting up of the area cleared with 

 good transplants, might not in Britain prove more remunera- 

 tive than the above-sketched method of natural reproduc- 

 tion under parent standards, with only very gradual clear- 

 ance of the latter. 



The long retention of standard trees on areas under repro- 

 duction naturally leads to a desire for the removal of all 

 branches not strictly requisite for increasing speedily the 



K 



