304 NATURAL RRGENERATIOK BY 8KED. 



so that it is adapted to a fluctuating market, provided that the 

 demand never falls below a certain minimum and takes in most 

 of the classes of produce the forest can yield. 



(9) As we mostly wait for nature, and never try violently to 

 push her along, the aggregate time required for regenerating a 

 large area composed, as it must always he, of groups of various ages, 

 is generally longer than in the uniform method; but, on the other 

 hand, the regeneration of any individual group, when it has once 

 been taken in hand, is usually a rapid process. 



(10) The scattered fellings necessitate a long and intricate 

 system of roads. 



(11) Being the most analytic and detailed of the various 

 methods of natural regeneration, its application demands the high- 

 est degree of skill, care, watchfulness, activity and industry, 

 and hence more specialised and stronger establishments than any 

 other method. 



(12) Owing to characteristics (10) and (11) it is also the most 

 expensive of all the various methods. 



Characteristics 1-8 are unmixed advantages of the highest order. 

 Characteristic 9 is in no sense a disadvantage, for while the new 

 generation is gradually making its appearance, the annual increase 

 per acre, thanks to the constantly full leaf-canopy, and the early 

 commencement of regeneration (Characteristics 4 and 3), can still 

 go on undiminished. Nor is characteristic 10 invariably a disad- 

 vantage, for under no other method of regeneration that is 

 applicable to a forest in which conditions vary from place to 

 place, could export be rendered easier. Characteristics 11 and 

 12 are certainly drawbacks in the present backward condition 

 of the country. 



The group method is peculiarly suited for forests in which the 

 soil, locality and species and the condition of the crop exhibit wide 

 divergences at short intervals. A forest may contain numerous- 

 places, where, owing to the deterioration of the soil, or to damage 

 to the stock by snow or fire or animals or from previous unrestrict- 

 ed enjoyment, or to the presence of groups of very much younger 

 trees than the predominant age-class, &c., it may be necessary to 

 begin regeneration at once before the operations can be extended 

 into the immediately adjoining areas, thus laying the foundation 

 for the group method. It is especially in mixed lorests and in. 

 those, whether mixed or pure, in which advance growth begins to- 

 come up long before the trees are large enough to be felled, that 

 the method will find its most obvious application. 



