FOREST EXPLOITATION. 155 



4. It should be borne in mind that treatment as a 

 timber forest is that alone which properly suits the beech, 

 and even the partisans of Furetage can scarcely consider 

 this method of exploitation as other than provisional, and 

 one which ought only to be applied pending the transfor- 

 mation of the coppice wood into a timber forest, which 

 should be the end of all foresters. What good, then, can 

 be expected from seeking at great trouble to modify the 

 existing order of things ? 



Having replied to these several objections, M. Guinier 

 states what he has to recommend, premising, however, 

 that inasmuch as it admits the reservation of balliveaux, or 

 seed-bearing standards, it is questionable whether the 

 designation Furetage would still be applicable. And he 

 expresses a kind of preference for another designation : he 

 says : — ' I believe we must surrender the name. As a 

 matter of fact, the principle of Furetage is the removal of 

 the shoots which are in a dominant state and the constitu- 

 tion of a reserve taken, except exceptionally, from the 

 dominated shoots. And if we in principle prescribe the con- 

 stitution of a resfcrve,more or less abundant, chosen from the 

 dominating productions, we resume the principle of Taillis 

 suns Futaie — copse as the under-growth of a timber forest ; 

 and whatever may be the propoi^tions of the two consti- 

 tuents, a felling must present the aspect of one adapted 

 to that mode of growth.' , 



In his treatise M. Guinier remarks that in view of the 

 principle underlying this method of exploitation it seems to 

 be a most certain and most simple mode of exploitation ; 

 but in practice it is not found to be so. He alleges that 

 . from the first there do not exist the three well defined 

 divisions of shoots. He adds that in the mountains where 

 vegetation is slow the shoots of thirty years cannot be 

 distinguished from those of twenty years growth when, 

 by any means whatsoever, the full development of the 

 former has been impeded. The shoots of different divi- 

 sions often preponderate in some one or more positions 



