78 ELEMENTS OF SYLVICULTURE. 



a state of secondary cutting, rather crowded, than 

 to run the risk of seeing the wind make a final 

 cutting before the proper time. No one will have 

 the least doubt about this if they will but give 

 themselves the trouble to ascertain for themselves 

 how seedlings grow up under an old forest so dense 

 as to allow scarcely any light to reach the ground. 

 There is no object in leaving any reserves after 

 the final cutting, and moreover it would be almost 

 always impossible to maintain them thus isolated. 



It has occasionally been urged that the primary 

 cutting should be made rather open in forests of 

 silver fir, and cases where the operation resulted in 

 success have been cited. 'If the actual facts are 

 attentively observed and verified, it will be at once 

 evident that, after an open cutting, the young plants 

 that pre-existed on the ground may indeed develop 

 themselves, but that no new seedlings are produced; 

 that the condition of the soil becomes worse and 

 worse, and the seed bearers are blown down by the 

 wind, or wither away standing. It will then be 

 necessary to restock artificially with the Scotch pine 

 or the spruce fir, and the silver fir is lost for the 

 whole of one rotation. These so-called instances of 

 success simply show that there was occasion to 

 make a secondary, not a primary cutting. 



IMPROVEMENT CUTTINGS. With the exception of 

 the beech when it is associated with the silver fir, 

 the sycamore maple is the only species likely to 

 prove dangerous, if it occurs in great numbers ; a 

 few willows and elders are also found. In such 

 cases it will be advisable to make a few light clean- 



