coNcirsioN. 311 



If, when we have simply a small plains forest to deal with, 

 we have to reckon •with so many facta of a special nature, what 

 must it be, if, and this even iu the slightest degree, the ground is 

 undulating, the age classes mixed up, and the crops varied ? The 

 organisation of a forest, like every other question of a professional 

 character, is thus always a complicated, diflBcult, and import 'int 

 operation, for the Amdnagiste has to adapt it to the forest in ques- 

 tion, to the locality in which his work lies and on which after the 

 lapse of a few years his Organisation Project must leave a faith- 

 ful impression of itself 



A danger to be avoided in work like this is preconceived 

 ideas and foregone conclusions. After what we have just said, it 

 is easy to understand that the idea one forms, in advance or from 

 a distance, of any forest never corresponds to the reality, and that 

 . a personal knowledge of it is absolutely necessary for drawing up 

 or for carrying out any project for its organisation. To guard 

 oneself completely against all chance and uncertainty, one must 

 moreover be intimately acquainted with the conditions prevail- 

 ing outside the forest, and even with the manners and customs of 

 the surrounding population. These facts, although external to 

 the forest itself exercise for good or for evil a powerful and last- 

 ing influence on it, and their disregard by the Am^nagiste or the 

 Executive Forest Officer may frequently sooner or later render 

 the Organisation Project impracticable. 



Foregone conclusions and stereotyped ideas may lead to 

 further dangers. At the end of the last century the greater num- 

 ber of the compound copses belonging to the Communes of East- 

 ern France were worked on a Rotation of 25 years. This rule of 

 25 years was adopted with the most uncompromising rigour 

 whether it suited the forest in question or not. Whether the 

 copse was composed of oak, of hornbeam, of beech, of hazel, of 

 alder, or of birch, whether the soil on which it was situated was 

 rich or poor, moist or dry, deep or superficial, it was exploited at 

 the age of 25 years. It is obvious that, however well this Rota- 

 tion suited some forests, there were many others for which it 

 proved disastrous ; and it is quite possible that it is responsible, 

 together with other causes of course, for the rarity of oak in so 

 many of our Compouad Copses. Every rigid system, refusing 



