THE GROUP METHOD. 359 



fraction of the entire extent of the forest, labour can be properly 

 organised, directed and supervised, thereby securing the maximum 

 of efficiency and economy, the damage to the forest growth, 

 inevitable in all heavy felling and export operations, is localised and 

 minimised, and is, therefore, easily repaired, and labour-saving 

 contrivances, such as sawing machines, sledge-roads, slides, tram- 

 ways, floating, &c., can be adopted for the conversion and export 

 of the large accumulation of produce at one spot. In the next 

 place, as the coupes may be made to follow each other on the 

 ground in the order of their dates, the export line which has served 

 this year will have only to be slightly extended to the next conpe 

 to do'duty again the following year ; and so on. Then again, as the 

 successive coupes form a regular gradation of ages, the youngest 

 crops will be situated in one place, so that if, a part of the forest has 

 to be kept open for grazing or for any other purpose, all the older 

 areas, in which the crops axe old and tall and strong enough to run 

 no risk of injury, may be thrown open. Lastly, the lines on which 

 work is to proceed can be previously laid down with such systematic 

 regularity that little margin is left for individual discretion or 

 caprice, so that foresters of only average inteUigence and training 

 may be employed to carry it out. 



SECTION V. 

 The group method. 



However irregular a forest may be and ill-suited for the adop- 

 tion of the uniform method, if we examine it closely enough, we 

 shall nearly always find that it consists of a number of smaller or 

 larger homogeneous parts or groups, each of which separately may 

 be regenerated by the usual succession of serial fellings, the uni- 

 form appHcation of which to the whole forest, were it suffici- 

 ently regular, would constitute the uniform method. In this way 

 we arrive at the group method, which thus differs from the uniform 

 method mainly in that it deals with much smaller units, the areas 

 subjected to one and the same class of feUing being scattered about 

 intead of being all in one place and forming a single continuous 

 mass of forest. Whereas in the uniform method &iriy con- 

 spicuous differences of soil, area, species and grovrth are not unfre- 

 quently overlooked in the formation of the annual coupe, in the 

 group method each group is treated on its own individual merits.* 



• Those who are acquainted with the history of forestry in France will observe 

 that the parceUaire in an amermgement used, not very long ago, to be an attempt to 

 reconcile the group and uniform methods, parceUe and group being nearly synony- 

 moua. 



