GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 99 



less, when time is limited, it may be necessary to fell above ground 

 and then extract the stumps at leisure. 



The removal of the underground stock has, from a sylvicultural 

 point of view, the advantage that it thoroughly loosens the soil and 

 thus favours the germination of seeds and the establishment and 

 growth of seedlings. On the other hand, such loosening of the soil 

 is dangerous on sloping ground or ground that is subject to inun- 

 dation, while in sandy or otherwise dry and barren land it deprives 

 the soil of so much manurial matter, and renders it too freely 

 permeable to water. 



If a large tree has to be exported in the log, it should not be 

 allowed to fall or roll into a ravine or other hollow, from which its 

 extraction would be impossible or extremely laborious and expen- 

 sive. 



To restrict, as much as possible, the damage to surrounding forest 

 inevitable in all felling operations, the fall of every tree should be 

 so directed that the tree may fall inside a gap between surround- 

 ing trees, or over a spot where there is least reproduction. In 

 the midst of a close forest or abundant young growth the crown 

 must be reduced, or may have to be altogether removed, parti- 

 cularly if the tree is very tall, as it is the portions farthest from 

 the ground which acquire the greatest momentum, and therefore 

 do most damage. In felling over dense very young growth, as in 

 the case of after-fellings or in jardinage coupes, the seedlings should 

 first be carefully bent away to either side, so as to form a narrow 

 lane into which the tree may fall. 



If, in spite of every precaution, a tree falls upon another so 

 that its crown gets entangled in that of the latter and cannot be 

 disengaged by merely trying to pull it away, then either a log or 

 two must be cut off from the bottom, or, that expedient failing, one 

 or more branches of the standing tree must be sacrificed. 



As a rule, the amount of felled material lying on tbe coupe at any 

 time should not exceed what may be cut up and removed within 

 the next two or three days. Hence conversion should progress 

 pari passu with the felling operations. 



All large coupes should be divided into sections small enough to 

 be worked by a single gang, and in each section the work must 

 begin at one end and progress successively to the other end. On 

 a slop? the boundary lines between the sections should run 

 straight up and down hill, and each section should run down the 

 entire length of the slope, so that no gang may endanger another 

 by felling above it. Small drainage basins or separate sides of a 

 larger one constitute the )uost convenient sections. In each section 



