CHAPTER XII. 



FELLING BY SELECTION (PLANTERBETRIEB). 



THIS is the primitive system of working forests 

 in all countries. In its ruder form, the forester 

 proceeds without method, going into the forest and 

 selecting such timber as suits him, irrespective of 

 the relation of its cubic contents to the forest incre- 

 ment. Reduced to system, it implies a condition of 

 the forest in which every part is covered with trees 

 of each period of growth in just proportion, so that 

 with say a rotation of a hundred years, if all the 

 trees of full age be taken out in any one year, 

 there will be a corresponding number which will 

 reach maturity the following year. Among the 

 drawbacks of this system, a very important one 

 is the large area over which operations range, and 

 the consequent difficulty of supervision. This is to 

 some extent met by dividing the forest into twenty 

 equal blocks, and cutting the required number of 

 trees in each block annually. The introduction 

 of this modification upsets the regularity of yield 



