BOOK IV. 



OEGANISATIOE" OF IRREGULAR HIGH 

 FORESTS. 



Under the term Iixegular High Forests we include (i) all 

 those high forests which contain crops that are of defective growth, 

 are incomplete-, or are composed of inferior species ; (ii) those high 

 forests in which an unequal gradation of age-classes would, if a 

 regular treatment were adopted, lead to the felling of timber before 

 it was exploitable or after full decay had set in ; and (iii) also those 

 forests in which the age-classes, instead of being differentiated into 

 separate well-defined groups, are all intermixed so as entirely to 

 prohibit any kind of successive order in the exploitations. Such 

 forests are numerous-, and present the most diverse forms and every 

 degree of irregularity offering an infinitude of different types and 

 Gharacters. 



We propose in the immediately following pages to study the 

 organisation of forests worked- by Selection and to explain how the 

 General Working- Scheme of an irregular forest of broad-leaved 

 species should be framed. This will not only be sufficient to shov/ 

 how thoroughly the Area Method adapts- itself to the organisation 

 of every description of high forest, but will also- prove how that 

 Method never fails to- offer the means of realising, within the 

 measure of the possible and to any des-irable extent, each and all of 

 the principal objects of forest organisation, to wit, 



(i) The most useful prodiictfon, 



(ii) A sustained yield, 



(iii) A definite order in the exploitations, and 



(iv) Continued improvement of the forest. 



