42. 



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 o£ any crop or species. Por 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 thia 

 must always be the case where only some of the component 

 species of a crop are saleable. 



On the other hand, in applying this method for the 

 exploitation of the valuable species only in a mixed crop, it 

 is evident that the constitution of the growing stock is likely 

 to suffer considerably unless such major fellings are accom- 

 panied by well -considered cultural operations. 



A forest, treated by the method of successive regeneration 

 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 

 subjecting the area to transformation fellings during a 

 lengthy period. But the chief drawbacks in India to the 

 employment of the method have been that it is compHcated 

 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 carriei 

 out simultaneously in different parts of the area treated : 

 principal regeneration fellings in one locality, selection 

 fellings in another, weedings in a third, and thinnings in 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 regener- 

 ation fellings may be prescribed either by number of stems 

 or by volume of material. The former method may lead to- 

 unequal annual returns since the size of the individual trees 

 felled necessarily varies : but it does not involve the laborious 

 and costly calculation of the contents of the crop extending: 



