PREPARATORY FELLINGS IN THE UNIFORM METHOD, 331 



demands of the overgrown crown, the result being starvation as 

 well as over-transpiration. 



The ohject of the preparatory fellings with respect to the parent 

 crop is hence to gradually give the trees increasing room both in 

 the air and in the soil, and thus to allow the crown and the roots 

 to expand in a proportionate manner and the bole to become strong 

 enough to resist being broken. 



As regards the soil, under a dense canopy of trees it will, in the 

 Himalayas generally, and in tropical evergreen forests invariably, 

 be found covered with a thick layer of fibrous or charred humus 

 and unreduced vegetable debris. Seedlings produced on such a 

 surface would either be poisoned or, being unable to get down 

 deep enough into the true mineral soil below, would wither up 

 when the loose mass in question had lost all its surplus hygroscopic 

 moisture in the dry season. The opening out of the leaf-canopy 

 in the preparatory fellings, by admitting heat and a free circula- 

 tion of air under the forest, hastens the reduction and decomposi- 

 tion of this obnoxious covering. But other special measures have 

 also to be undertaken, as an integral part of the preparatory 

 operations, to further this natural process. 



II . Number of the preparatory fellings . 



In no case should the crop be opened out suddenly to such an 

 extent as to endanger the stability and vegetation of the trees an! 

 the fertility of the soil and its freedom from a growth of masterful 

 weeds. Heuce the almost invariable necessity of giving to the future 

 parent and nurse trees spreading room only gradually, that is, of 

 making more than one felling. The number of preparatory fellings 

 will hence depend 



(i) On the component species. The more liable the trees are to 

 be broken or blown or bent down, or to suffer from sunstroke or 

 too sudden isolation, the more gradually and cautiously must the 

 leaf-canopy be opened out, and hence the more frequent must be 

 the fellings. So again, the more rapidly the crowns expand and 

 completely reform the broken leaf-canopy, the oftener must it be 

 reopened. In a mixed forest, both because the leaf-canopy closes 

 up again earlier and certain species often require to be specially 

 favoured, the preparatory fellings will generally be more numerous 

 than in pure forest. 



(ii) On the soil. The richer the soil is, the greater will be the 

 danger of a strong growth of weeds, and hence the more gradually 

 must the trees be thinned out. 



