THE SYSTEM AS EXISTING IN THE PAST IN INDIA. 147 



while on the ground the removal of the definite uumher of class I 

 trees prescribed and the neglect to remove class II trees or thiii the 

 masses of voting growth results in a felling opposed to every 

 requirement of silviculture. This is uot an imaginary state of 

 affairs ; it has been personally met with .on more than one occasion 

 in the deodar forests of the Himalayas and is not unknown else- 

 where. The result of subordinating silviculture to arithmetic 

 results either in prescriptions of the plan being carried out to the 

 neglect of silviculture or to a silvicultural felling being made 

 regardless of the prescribed yield of the working plan. 



It may be argued that the above defects are eliminated when 

 the fellings are entirely by area with no prescribed number of trees. 

 This is so, but another error is introduced in that it is entirely 

 unknown whether the actual yield of the forest is being obtained 

 or not. It is highly probable, more especially in virgin forests 

 that very much more than the true yield will be removed ; on the 

 other hand under very conservative management very much less 

 than the yield may be felled. The yield is largely at the mercy of 

 the personal opinions and idiosyncracies of the executive officer in 

 charge and it is not right that the whole future of the forest should 

 bo dependent on this. 



The present tendency is to convert forests worked under the 

 selection system to evenaged forest under the sheltenvood system, system 

 Several cases arise, however, in which the character of the growing 

 stock does not lend itself to this conversion or in which the physi- 

 cal aspect of the working circle is too rugged to admit of the 

 production of evenaged high forest. The tendency of even the 

 bost managed selection forests is to become more and more even- 

 aged. For the present in Northern India theiv is no necessity to 

 struggle against this ; the future silvicultural system may be left 

 for future consideration and we may confine ourselves to realizing 

 the true yield of the forest and improving the silvicultural condi- 

 tion of the crop. The following extracts from working plans show 

 the silvicultural ideas underlying the present management. 



