SBLBCTION OF STANDAEDS- 231 



In actual practice, as the operations connected with the selec- 

 tion of standards require sustained attention, a distinct act of 

 judgment, so to say, for each separate tree, it is almost impossible 

 to direct them properly, while at the same time keeping the Field 

 Record Book, in which the number and classes of the trees marked 

 for reservation are noted. It is, moreover, dangerous to complicate 

 the selection of the trees to be reserved by the simultaneous 

 measurement of the trees to be felled. As far as we our- 

 selves are concerned, if we were obliged to conduct these two opera- 

 tions simultaneously, it is our firm conviction that we would expose 

 ourselves to the certain risk of making most serious mistakes in 

 both of them. Besides this, after the trees to be reserved have 

 been marked, it requires very little time to estimate the quantity of 

 the trees to be felled, scarcely six minutes per acre. For the least 

 extent that the selection of the reserve is delayed and protracted 

 by the simultaneous valuation of the timber to be felled, what an 

 amount of time is wasted, that could be much more profitably spent I 



The operations just referred to form the most important part of 

 the duties of a Forest OfScer. One day spent in selecting trees for 

 reservation means thousands of pounds worth of wood finally given 

 up to the axe of the wood-cutter and large areas either irretriev- 

 ably ruined or maintained in a high state of production. Those who 

 conduct these operations must hence devote to them the full quota 

 of time required by them, and the owner of the forest must accept 

 as inevitable the larger outlay due to that very fact. 



§ 2. Private Forests. 



The selection of standards in private forests is just as important 

 an operation as in State and communal forests, and, indeed, is verv 

 often beset with even greater difficulties. Here also the real gist of 

 the problem lies in the thorough appreciation of the conditions, 

 which the standards ought to satisfy in order that they may be con- 

 sidered exploitable. Whereas in copses managed by the Forest 

 Department the epoch of exploitability coincides for each tree with 

 that of its maturity, in the woods of private proprietors, on the con- 

 trary, every tree must be considered as exploitable, the value of 

 which, at the time the standards are selected for reservation, 



