JARDINAGE OK THE SHLBCTION METHOD. 371 



per acre will be too small to enable us to maintain a full esta- 

 blishment of highly-trained, and therefore highly-paid, men. The 

 amount of skill required does, it is true, become slightly greater 

 with the increasing intensity of the jardinage ; but that is no draw- 

 back, since increasing intensity of treatment implies improved 

 markets and a rising net revenue, conditions which justify a larger 

 expenditure on better trained establishments. 



Against these enormous and unique advantages only two dis- 

 advantages can be adduced. In the first place, owing to the 

 regeneration being spread over the whole area of the forest, pro- 

 tection becomes difficult and the admission of grazing into any 

 part of the forest becomes impossible ; and, in the second place, 

 owing to the exploitable trees being scattered, felling and export 

 cost more than when the trees are all close together, and supervi- 

 sion has to be exercised on a more extensive scale. 



The opponents of jar dinage, carried away by their prejudice 

 against the system, bring against it also other far heavier charges. 

 They say (1) that in consequence of the frequently recurring opera- 

 tions, the trees and young growth get badly injured, the result 

 being a very large proportion of unsound and misshapen trees 

 and loss of production ; (2) that the irregularity of the stock is 

 the cause of knotty, crooked, unsymmetrically developed timber, 

 which therefore seasons badly and is liable to warp and spHt ; and 

 (3) that the "necessary absence of thinnings and unregulated 

 regeneration" result in a faulty distribution of species, and that 

 even if individuals of the mo re valuable kinds chance to survive, 

 they do so after having exhausted and permanently weakened 

 themselves in the struggle from which they have emerged success- 

 fully. 



These charges are easily answer ed, for they are all based on a 

 petitio principii. In the first place, is it the truth that the jardi- 

 nage operations are more frequently recurring than the successive 

 fellings made in any other ki nd of treatment ? Of course not. 

 The opponents of jardinage only take into account the regenera- 

 tion fellings in the other systems of treating a forest, whereas they 

 must bring into the same line the thinnings made at short inter- 

 vals. Thus the frequency of the operations in jardinage not being 

 greater, why is it impossible to effect the felling and export with 

 just as much care as in any other method ? The indictment brought 

 against jardinage, and just proved to be baseless, owes its origin 

 to the fact that the method being relegated in Europe to steep 

 mountainous country, the felled as well as the standing wood gets 



