III. THE SELECTION SYSTEM. 83 



system. All silvicultural operations have to be done in the same 

 compartment and a nice discrimination has to be exercised as to 

 the tree to be retained or removed ; the growing stock in every 

 compartment Las to be considered with reference to the normal 

 and fellings made accordingly. Eegeneration is in progress over 

 the whole forest and it is exceedingly difficult to realise whether 

 sufficient regeneration is being obtained or not, or to take the 

 measures necessary to induce normal reproduction. 



The removal of trees which have reached the exploitable size 

 as carried out in the past, both in the sal and deodar forests, is no 

 silvicultural system at all. It answered the needs of the day and 

 was perhaps the only possible arrangement under the circums- 

 tances of the time, but that time has now past. Its ultimatejfailure 

 and rejection was foreseen by Mclntyre, an officer of exceptional 

 ability, more than '20 years ago when he wrote as follows : 



" It is one thing to cut out mature trees here and there, over an 

 oxisting advance growth of deodar, and quite another thing to 

 regenerate a canopied mature deodar forest under which there is no 

 reproduction. If in the latter case we trust to fellings prescribed 

 long in advance, reproduction must be a matter of chance." 3 * 



This system differs from high forest in that reproduction is _,, 

 obtained almost entirely from stool shoots. The whole growing simple 

 stock is clear felled and regenerated by coppice shoots. The coppiot 

 system, or its modification coppice with standards, is most suitable 

 for crops managed for firewood or small timber and is largely 

 adopted for the scrub forests of Banda and of Central India, where 

 the site and climate are not capable of producing large trees, and 

 where the indigenous tree growth is mostly scrub. Other examples 

 of the system are the eucalyptus plantations of the Nilgiries, the 

 irrigated plantations of sissoo and mulberry in the Punjab and sal 

 in most private estates and in several United Provinces divisions. 

 .Formerly very extensive areas of coppice existed in Franca and 



' Unpublished note on deodar in Kulu 



