116 ELEMENTS OF SYLVICULTURE. 



those forests being excepted in which the dominant 

 kinds are the sweet chestnut and the soft-woods, or 

 which are situated on the worst kinds of soil. Article 

 134 of the same Statute renders these provisions 

 applicable to Communal forests. This is an excel- 

 lent measure, which private proprietors themselves 

 would, almost always, find it their interest to adopt. 



But though there may be different views regard- 

 ing the inferior limit of age at which a coppice ought 

 to be cut; experience has clearly laid down a 

 superior limit generally for all lands of trees. It is 

 obvious that reproduction from the stool ought to 

 be completely guaranteed, and for no kind is it ever 

 safe to exceed the age of forty years.* 



ANNUAL YIELD. If the working-circles have been 

 properly laid out, the crop on the ground will be 

 sufficiently homogeneous to enable us to base the 

 annual yield on area, and the determination of the 

 number of acres to cut every year becomes a very 

 simple matter. Moreover, this is the only certain 

 method by which we can work the forest on a given 

 rotation. 



SEASON FOR CUTTING. Under this head we must 

 examine the two cases of felling during the winter 

 and felling while the sap is in circulation. 



The first condition for the production of shoots 



* This remark, true for France and Europe generally, must be 

 accepted with some slight modifications for India. The teak is a 

 remarkable case in point. Stools on which more than 120 rings 

 were counted (and there is nothing to prove that each ring is not 

 one year's growth) produced in many instances, although cut down 

 to the ground, more numerous and larger shoots than the sur- 

 rounding younger stools. 



