THE AFTEE-FBLLINGS IS THE UNIFORM METHOD. 855 



lings get ahead of their neighbours, always to keep the growth 

 below the level of these latter full enough to push them up and to 

 protect the soil and prevent its being overrun by a strong growth 

 of weeds and brushwood. 



The work just described should he done only by a thoroughly 

 trained and experienced establishment, never by contract or by 

 daily labour. 



4. Restoration of injured seedlings. 



Seedlings that cannot be dispensed with, but which are so badly 

 injured as to be unable to grow up into well-shaped and healthy 

 plants, should be cut back to enable them to reform themselves. They 

 should be taken off as near the ground as possible and with a clean 

 section. The tools to use are pruning knives (Figs. 114 and 121 

 represent two most effective patterns or strong shears (Figs.115 

 and 116). But if the stems are too thick for such implements, they 

 must then be cut through with a single blow from a light hatchet 

 or bill-hook, as shown in Fig. 122. 



5. Completion of tlie seedling crop hy artificial methods. 



Recourse must be had to artificial regeneration in the follow- 

 ing five cases : — 



(i) To stock complete original blanks. If such blanks are small, 

 there is always a chance of their becoming sown by the surround- 

 ing forest ; in their case, therefore, it is generally advisable to 

 wait, before undertaking artificial regeneration operations, until 

 the last or last-but-one after-felUng, when, if self-sown seedling 

 have in the meantime failed to make their appearance, plants of 

 more or less the same size and vigour as those forming the surroun- 

 ding naturally-produced young crop should be put down. Other- 

 wise the blanks should be sown up immediately after the seed- 

 felling, if sowing is justifiable, or planted up with the class of 

 seedHngs most likely to assimilate themselves quickly with the 

 coming self-sown crop. 



(ii) To restock places where natural regeneration has completely 

 failed. Here we must plant seedlings of about the same size and 

 vigour as the surrounding growth, for it is an essential condition 

 that the new crop should not show too great a disparity in its " 

 several parts. This work should be taken in hand only at the 

 last after-feUing, unless it is considered hopeless to wait until then 

 or unless the species used is deHcate or shade-enduring. 



(iii) To fill up places wliere the regeneration is incomplete. Here 



