TRANSITION, ETC. IO5 



We have now the choice of spreading twenty years 

 over each block, and felling the oldest trees first, 

 which would be the introduction of a modified 

 system of felling by selection in restricted areas, 

 or of dividing each block into twentieths, and 

 felling by rotation of area ; and throughout the 

 whole second rotation, instead of cutting at the 

 uniform age of 100 years, we should have to cut 

 trees varying from eighty to 120 years. 



It will be gathered from this that the change 

 of system is not a matter to be effected in a day, 

 and should not lightly be resorted to at a great 

 sacrifice of present revenue, even where the ulti- 

 mate benefit is beyond question. 



Throughout this example it has been assumed 

 that reproduction is ensured either by planting or 

 by thinning out gradually the timber to be felled, 

 so as to foster natural reproduction, and that the 

 blocks laid up were thinned where necessary, and 

 principally by removal of trees under forty years 

 old only. 



But Indian forests, although they may have 

 hitherto been worked on the system of felling by 

 selection, will rarely be found in the state above 

 pictured. Instead of having trees of all ages in 

 due proportion springing side by side from an 

 uniform undergrowth of seedlings, we find more 

 generally that they consist of irregular blocks, in 



