TEE NILAMBUB TEAK PLANTATIONS. 117 



and the uprooted weeds are thrown over it. Pruning is carried 

 out in young plants before the branches develop woody parts. 



Thinnings. While weeding, care is taken to uproot all natural 

 seedlings excepting those which are near the failures in order to 

 reduce the early thinnings into mechanical operations. In the I 

 and II Quality the thinnings start at the age of 5 and are 

 repeated every 5 years to 15, then every 10 years to 45, when 

 one final thinning of the nature of a heavy Increment Felling 

 is carried out. In the III Quality, the thinnings start at the 

 age of 10, and are repeated every 5 years until 25, then every 

 10 years until 45, after which no further thinnings are made. 

 Three or four thinnings in the beginning are mechanical by the 

 removal of 50 per cent, of trees, i.e., alternate trees in alternate 

 rows. 



In these thinnings the idea is to give equal growing space to 

 all the trees left standing without any consideration of the final 

 crop. The final crop only comes into consideration in the last two 

 or three thinnings when the best stems if possible are retained for 

 the final crop with the sacrifice of some spacing because the quality 

 increment is enormous for bigger dimensions. The number of 

 trees retained for the final crop is 35, 50, 70 per acre for I, II, and 

 III Quality respectively. 



Cost of fotmation Is from 27 to 53 coolie units (one unit 4 

 to 6 annas) the difference being due to the number of weedings 

 necessary. The 1st Quality area requires three weediugs in the 

 first year only, while the 3rd Quality may require a weeding in the 

 3rd year. 



These three illustrations of the application of the clearfelling 

 system to Indian conditions will suffice to explain the general 

 procedure. 



In conclusion, it will be useful to emphasise again a few points Opnclu- 

 regarding the conditions required for its successful application. 

 There are some species for which the system is practically essen- 

 tial, i. e., riverain species such as sissoo (and to a certain extent 



