172 CONDITION 01" OUR SELECTION-WORKED FORESTS. 



trees, for others at 0'6 per acre. Thus supposing a certain Working 

 Circle measured 750 acres, the number of trees felled ia it annually 

 would have been 300 or 450 according as the number per acre 

 was fixed at 04 or 06. Elsewhere, as in the communal forest of 

 la Cluse the yield was fixed at about half a tree per acre. Care was 

 taken to r-emove only a very few trees from any one spot, one or 

 two only for example, so as to avoid making too large a gap any 

 where in the leaf-canopy, since such gaps must cause considerable 

 injury to the forest. With this method of procedure it was necessary 

 to spread the annual operations over a large area, and indeed, as 

 far as the pure principle went, over the whole Working Circle. 

 Actually however the area operated upon every year was restricted 

 in most cases to only a single canton. 



When this method of treatment has been continuously applied 

 for any length of time, trees of all ages from the seedling to the 

 exploitable individual are found mixed up pell-mell together. A 

 crop of this character, even though it be a complete one, cannot but 

 consist of crowns rising one above another. Those of the large trees, 

 standing out as they generally do singly, begin close to the ground, 

 while those of middle-sized trees are often weak and spare, and all 

 the younger growth is overtopped and hence, as a rule, lanky and 

 sickly. Exceptionally, as the result of some special cause (the wind, 

 for example, which may have blown down all the larger trees), 

 some fine crops assume an almost regular appearance. But as 

 reproduction is left to chance, glades and even blanks form, which, 

 from being more or less numerous all through the forest, asfgresate 

 together at times a considerable area. 



The outturn of produce of a forest worked by Selection is, acre 

 for acre, admittedly less than that of a regular high forest. This 

 inferiority is due principally to the languid growth of some of the 

 trees and the sickly condition of a much larger number, and is very 

 marked or insignificant according to the state of the forest con- 

 cerned. The quality of the produce yielded is also inferior, some- 

 times even absolutely bad. The chief causes of this inferiority are 

 (i) the rapid growth of the bigger trees, which in tiie case of 

 conifers produces soft-grained-timber ; (ii) the formation of large 

 knots, which are serious defects when they occur in the silver and 

 spruce firs ; and (iii) the production of various kinds of unsoundness 



