63 



containing about 250 acres of sM forest, or a good deal more than the average. When 

 icarked out on the ground the conpes would, we will suppose, be as follows : — 



In selection working, where the number of trees to be felled is prescribed, the 

 usual practice in India bas been to study the results of the enumeration survey and 

 to select areas capable of furnishing the number of trees required each year. Thus 

 if the possibility were fixed at 2,000 trees, areas capable of furnishing 2 000 trees 

 would be selected to constitute the annual coupes. This system is, however, open 

 to objection in that the coupes are not permanent as they ought to be. They depend 

 merely on the crop for the time being. At the next felling rotation totally ditferent 

 annual coupes might have to be formed. Where a sustained annual yield is not of 

 special impoi-tance, it would, therefore, be better to form permanent annual coupes 

 and then to prescribe the fellings to be made in them. 



Balancing the production — In coppice fellings, and other 

 cases in which the possibility is prescribed by area only, it is 

 sometimes sought to balance the production and to determine 

 the area of the coupes by processes more exact and scientific 

 than those described above. The production depends on 

 what has been called the quality of the locality, that is to 

 say, on the influence of the climate, aspect, soil, etc., and on 

 the composition and density of the crop ; and it has been 

 attempted, by assigning numerical co-eflBcients to each of 

 these factors, to arrive at the result sought by means of 

 mathematical formulae. But such calculations, based on 

 uncertain data, are often misleading and occasionally lend 

 merely an appearance of mathematical accuracy to estimates 

 which can be more correctly made by the exercise of a 

 little judgment and common sense. In the present state of 

 our knowledge of forestry in India they are entirely out of 

 place. 



