48 ELEMENTS OF SYLVICULTUKE. 



the bill-hook or with the pruning knife, but the use 

 of climbing irons must be strictly prohibited, because 

 if the wounds they inflict go as far as the sap-wood, 

 decayed spots are certain to result. The trees thus 

 temporarily preserved are intended to be felled as 

 they mature or show signs of decay. Their reserva- 

 tion is fully justified by the great and increasing 

 scarcity of large oak in France, and the enhanced 

 utility of timber of large dimensions ; and it thus 

 becomes a matter of supreme necessity in State forests 

 and one of the highest utility in communal forests. 

 Whatever be the number of these reserves, and it is 

 improbable that they will ever be too numerous, a 

 long time must necessarily elapse before they become 

 really injurious to the undergrowth. Besides this, 

 the fact that they will be utilised much sooner than 

 the underwood should secure them the first consi- 

 deration, even if the latter does suffer in consequence 

 here and there. 



IMPKOVEMENT CUTTINGS. Cleanings. At the 

 time of the final cutting, sometimes even before, but 

 in any case not long afterwards, brushwood and other 

 species that may have crept in among the oak, begin 

 to outgrow the latter and threaten their very exist- 

 ence. It now becomes imperative to protect the 

 oak by means of cleanings. It is principally in rich 

 and moist soils under a temperate climate, that the 

 soft-woods spring up rapidly and in great abundance, 

 and tend to expel the oak ; the lime and the great 

 sallow are by far the most dangerous. Immediately 

 they outstrip the oak, no time must be lost in topping 

 them, a method that is preferable to cutting them 



