DAMAGE CAUSED BY AERIAL CURRENTS. 35 



that has been extensively damaged by a storm are very impor- 

 tant, and resemble in many respects such as are entailed by large 

 breakage from accumulations of snow (see par. 16) ; but those due 

 to storms have sometimes assumed enormous proportions, involving 

 the throwing of scores of millions of cubic feet of timber. 



The immediate and direct consequences consist in the interruption 

 of the leaf-canopy, and the formation of blanks in the crops, 

 hence leading to loss of increment and deterioration of the soil, 

 and not seldom necessitating the premature harvesting of the 

 damaged woodlands, the breakage and splintering of many 

 stems which are thus rendered useless for technical purposes, and 

 can only be utilised as fuel, as well as other considerable loss in 

 timber alone by the splintered portions being of hardly any use 

 or value at all, damage to areas undergoing natural reproduc- 

 tion, especially where the first reproductive felling has just been 

 made, or where gradual clearance of the standards is taking place, 

 owing to the parent standards being thrown, or to young crops 

 through the throwing and breakage of stems that are being held 

 over for another period of rotation, glutting of the market with 

 timber, with consequent reduction of the prices obtainable, and 

 complete unsaleableness of the smaller assortments of otherwise 

 disposable wood from branches, brushwood, and stumps, and 

 finally a rise in the price of labour, due to the great immediate 

 demand and to the greater risk and danger involved in working 

 among the enormous tangled masses of timber piled stem over 

 stem in the greatest confusion. 



As indirect or secondary results or consequences of extensive 

 damage done by storms may be enumerated the failure of natural 

 reproductions often necessitating costly cultural operations, owing 

 | to the rapid appearance of a rank growth of weeds, increased 

 danger from injurious insects, owing to the increase in the num- 

 ber of favourable breeding-places afforded by the unusual quantity 

 of timber often lying for some considerable time in the forest, the 

 sickly condition of damaged stems, and the stumps which it can- 

 I not pay to utilise, the interference with the conditions for the 

 maintenance of continuous, regular, or approximately regular 

 , annual outturn, with the distribution of the various successive 

 1 annual crops throughout the stock on the total area, with the due 

 succession of the prescribed annual falls, and generally with the 

 I whole arrangements of the Working Plan. 



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