96 ELEMENTS OF SYLVICULTUKE. 



they have reached the maximum of utility, without 

 waiting until the end of the new rotation. 



By the side of these signal disadvantages, we 

 must, however, acknowledge that the method of 

 "Tire et Aire" admitted from its very nature a grand 

 order in the exploitations, and that this order is to 

 a certain extent indispensable to the success of all 

 exploitations. Thanks to the long rotations, it has 

 often bequeathed to us forests rich in standing 

 timber, and if cleanings and thinnings had been 

 made in oak forests, there would not have been 

 much fault to find with it. 



At the present day, all the high forests to which 

 this method was formerly applied have been 

 regularised as far as that was possible, and it only 

 remains to carry out in them the operations of the 

 natural method. 



SELECTION METHOD. The selection method has 

 chiefly been applied to forests in mountain tracts 

 stocked with beech or the conifers (silver and spruce 

 firs, Scotch pine, larch, &c.). These species are not 

 all alike in their requirements, and naturally the 

 method of treatment must vary with each of them. 

 It may be stated, however, in a general manner, 

 that the selection method consists in felling here 

 and there, wherever they may chance to be found, 

 trees that are dead, decaying, unsound, or past 

 maturity, and a few others that are still healthy to 

 meet the demands of the market. In this method 

 of treatment the point to be aimed at is only to fell 

 very few trees on any one spot, and to spread the 

 operations every year over a large area, if not over 

 the whole forest. 



