CHAPTER III. 



BEARING OF THE CROP. 



After a crop has been created and established, various operations 

 are required in order so to regulate its development that during 

 every period of its existence it puts forth the full vigour of which 

 it is capable under the prevailing conditions of soil, climate and 

 species, and fulfils to the utmost extent the object of its existence. 

 At times they come in as a corrective, at others their purpose is to 

 remove hindrances to the prosperous growth of the crop, at others 

 again their effect is to directly foster this growth, and occasionally 

 they may combine any two or all three of these purposes. Some 

 of these operations may be essentially unproductive, yielding no 

 pecuniary return for the money and labour spent on them, while 

 others, although they may be unproductive in the absence of a good 

 market, nevertheless yield produce of less or greater value, which 

 we have already termed intermediate major produce as distinguish- 

 ed from that of the regeneration fellings, which we have termed 

 principal major produce. 



The first condition for the prosperous growth of a crop is of 

 course a suitable soil ; but we have already seen how the produc- 

 tiveness of a given soil depends on the kind of crop on it, so that 

 it depends to a great extent on the manner in which the growth 

 of the crop is regulated. Hence in the operations which are now 

 about to be described the care of the soil should never be left out 

 of sight. The double purpose to be thus served by these operations 

 may often make their execution extremely difficult and call for the 

 greatest circumspection and judgment on the part of the forester. 



Although these operations influence in no little degree the 

 growth of a crop and increase both the quantity and quality of the 

 yield, still there are unfortunately very few forests in India in which 

 they can be attempted at all, and even amongst these there is only 

 an excessively small proportion in which they can be carried out 

 in a complete manner. The reasons for this are manifold. In the 

 first place, most of our forests are in too ruined and open a condi- 

 tion for work of the kind to be possible there ; in the second place, 

 money can seldom be spared for directly unproductive operations that 

 are necessarily very costly : in the third place, there is either no 



