MODE OF EXPLOITATION. 395 



increasingly difficult, often even impossible, with the advancing 

 age of the clump. 



VII. The same difficulty exists in a measure even for the shoots 

 produced along the outside of the clump, owing to the habit these 

 shoots have of bending up inwards, soon after they have come out 

 of the ground, and sntering the inextricable tangle of interlacing 

 stems and branches. 



ARTICLE 2. 



Mode of exploitation. 



The first thing to be done is to determine the age at which a 

 clump may commence to be exploited. Since it is chiefly the last 

 two generations of culms which contribute towards the prodiiction 

 of new shoots, it is obvious that exploitation may not commence 

 until the clump contains at least three generations of shoots of the 

 largest size, until, in other words, such shoots have been appearing 

 for at least three consecutive years. To begin to work a clump 

 earlier would inevitably result in arresting its growth and throw- 

 ing it back for years. In order to avoid all possible risk it will 

 nearly always be advisable, especially in dry and poor soils, not to 

 touch any clump until large shoots have been appearing in it for 

 full four years running. 



The limitation here laid down applies of course only to the ex- 

 ploitation proper, and therefore does not exclude those preliminary 

 thinning operations, the object of which is, by keeping the clumps 

 sufficiently open and thereby giving the individual culms free 

 spreading room both in the air and in the soil, to encourage the 

 early formation of large shoots, and thus curtail the long period 

 of waiting during which the overcrowded unthinned clump would 

 go on producing an excessive number of only small unsaleable 

 culms. These thinnings also prepare the clumps for easy and sys- 

 tematic exploitation. 



It may here be said once for all that whether we merely thin or 

 carry out the regular exploitations, every shoot that is removed 

 must be cut as near the ground as possible ; the effect of leaving 

 stumps that do not die for years would be exactly the same as if no 

 thinning at all had been effected. 



The time for commencing the exploitations having arrived, it is 

 necessary to know how much and what to cut out at each exploita- 

 tion. Since the exploitations may either be annual or recur at 

 longer intervals of two or more years, we have two distinct cases 

 to consider under this head. 



