224 GOVERNMENT REGULATION AND WORKING PLANS 



way to obtain a reserve is to use rotations somewhat longer than is 

 indicated by the culmination of mean annual growth, or frankly to adopt 

 a physical rotation and grow the large timber that the private owner can 

 never afford to produce because of the lower financial returns. 



Summary of Principles and Methods. — French Government regula- 

 tion i' of cutting shows "for a given period^" when, how, where, and 

 how much should be cut in the forest." 



With more compUcated silviculture, where the number of fellings 

 must be increased to secure natural regulation, or with windfall or other 

 accidents, regulation is natm-ally more difficult and requires modifica- 

 tion oftener than with clear cutting. With simple coppice, regulation, 

 once wisely estabUshed, will last indefinitely, provided the rotation 

 remains unchanged. 



The management of a forest includes the (a) preliminary work upon 

 which the working plan is based and (6) the regulation of felling which 

 is based on the fundamental statistics collected under (a) . French writers 

 recognize only four essential kinds of yield regulation: 



(1) By area, which is simple but entails sacrifices if parts of the forest 

 are irregular and if too rigidly applied to secure an orderly sequence of 

 age classes. 



(2) By number of trees, usually with a diameter limit system.^ 

 This gives a variable volume yield and has been abandoned, except for 

 experimental purposes, with the exception of selection beech coppice 

 (talUs furete). In India this method, really a crude volume method, 

 is still extensively used possibly partly because of the fact that coolie 

 labor is used to collect working plan valuation survey data. 



" The following management terms (French terms and American equivalents) are 

 used by French writers: Rfeglement d' exploitation (cutting plan). Procte-verbal 

 d'am^nagement (working plan report). Possibilite (yield, amount forests can furnish 

 without diminishing revenue). S6rie (working group which forms a distinct economic 

 unit). Rotation (cutting cycle). Revolution (rotation). Affectation pdriodique 

 (periodic block, cut over during the period). Produits normaux (product or yield pre- 

 scribed by permanent working plan). Prodmts normaux prdvus (abnormal regenera- 

 tion fellings). Produits extraordinaires (cutting of reserve, in communal forest). 

 Produits principeaux (yield of mature timber, final regeneration fellings). Produits 

 interm^diares (thinnings). 



™ Huffel, already cited. 



" Where all trees over a fixed diameter are cut by the so-called diameter limit method 

 brought to the United States by Gifford Pinchot and first described by Lorenz in France 

 in 1867, there is great danger of irregular yields and of overcutting virgin stands where 

 age class normality is rarely found. Huffel says, "such a system can evidently be applied 

 only to forests very nearly normal. In a fir stand rich in large trees, seedlings, and 

 saplings, but poor in average sized trees, it would result in a rapid and ill-considered 

 cutting of all the old timber in a short period of superabundance, which would be fol- 

 lowed by a period of largely reduced fellings or even by a complete suspension of income." 



