102 ELEMENTS OF STLVICULTUEE. 



have already said that the selection method, should 

 be kept up for exceptional reasons. It ought to be 

 maintained in all forests where protection of, or shel- 

 ter to, other parts is the chief object, and wherever 

 regeneration is uncertain, difficult, or too slow to 

 enable us to obtain it with certainty, in a regular 

 and complete manner in a given space of time. The 

 same rule holds good for forests of very small 

 extent. 



As far as protection is concerned, this method should 

 be employed whenever there is reason to fear land- 

 slips, avalanches, and the formation of torrents, or 

 where the wind is violent and always blowing, as at 

 the higher limit of vegetation, on mountain ridges, 

 &c. 



Regeneration becomes difficult and uncertain when 

 the climate is extreme, or the soil unfertile. The 

 climate may be extreme in itself (higher limit of 

 vegetation), or from the absence of shelter (mountain 

 passes, ridges, edges of the forest). The soil is 

 unfertile from its nature (rock, scattered blocks, 

 stones), or owing to a steep gradient (wherever one 

 cannot walk with a sure step). These circumstances 

 may co-exist, and result in a stock that is seldom 

 complete and generally more or less broken up by 

 gaps. They are found in about half the hill forests 

 of conifers under the administration of the Forest 

 Department. 



In all these circumstances, the existence of con- 

 stant leaf-canopy is imperatively demanded, and to 

 maintain this, the action of nature, which gets rid of 

 the trees one by one, has to be imitated. In a word, 



