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te adapted to a mixed crop in which only one or two sj)ecies 

 are saleable. 



The selection method of working, formerly represented 

 as Ijarbarous and unscientific, is the only method which can 

 at present be applied in exploiting the great majority of our 

 Indian mixed forests in which only a few species are sale- 

 able. The prescriptions necessary in order to apply it are 

 simple, and it is well suited to the restoration, without the 

 aid of expensive works of artificial reboisement, of the 

 irregular and ruined forests so frequently met with in India. 

 It adapts itself to almost any system of culture and to the 

 special requirements of any crop or species. For instance, 

 the cover can be removed from the seedlings by successive 

 fellings undertaken gradually or at once, as in the regular 

 method or in the group method. Its drawbacks are first, 

 that, as only a portion of the material standing in the coupe 

 is felled, a large area has to be worked over at each opera- 

 tion, and the extraction of the produce is expensive ; but this 

 must always be the case where only some of the component 

 species of a crop are saleable. 



On the other hand the sylviculturist can do but little 

 towards fostering the growth ; the timber is of poorer quality 

 than that grown on areas treated by the regular method ; 

 much damage to young growth is often caused by the fellings ; 

 the accurate calculation of the possibility, is impossible, and 

 in India tlie danger from Are is greater. 



A forest, treated by the method of successive fellings, 

 should contain in compact blocks a properly graduated 

 series of crops of different ages, mature high forest, pole 

 crops, thickets, etc., each class occupying nearly the same 

 extent of ground. Such a condition does not at present 

 exist in any forest in India, and can only be induced by 

 subiecting the area to transformation fellings during a 

 lengthy period. But the chief drawbacks in India to the 

 employment of the method are that it is complicated and 

 that to apply it successfully a staff of thoroughly competent 

 foresters is required. Different classes of fellings, each 

 requiring to be executed with skill, must be carried out 

 simultaneously in different parts of the area treated : principal 

 reffeneration fellings in one locality, selection fellings in 

 another weedings in a third and thmnmgs m a fourth. 

 It also fails in one of the chief objects of a working-plan 

 in that it does not tend (unless the modified method is 

 adopted) to introduce order into the fellings. The regeuer- 



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