90 ‘THE FORESTER. 
arduous part of his duties for that year are over. His work is checked by his 
superior officer, the Conservator, who, book in hand, checks 10 per cent. of all 
his measurements and criticizes his selection of trees for felling. 
hing being now ready, the forest sections are thrown open to the 
uate Ge She ‘Ist March in ase Boke The forest remains open for felling til] 
the following June. All timber has to be worked and got out of the forest by the 
end of December; 15,000 trees on an average are thus felled yearly in the Kynsna 
Conservancy. The average size of the timber from these trees varies according 
to the quality of the forest. In the Gouna forest, near the port of Knysna, 
where it is almost virgin forest, the average of the trees felled is 56 cubic feet 
each. In the poor forests near George and Plettenberg Bay, in forest that has 
been overworked and irregularly worked for fifty years, this figure falls from 
56 cubic feet per tree to only 12 cubic feet, and to as low as 8 cubic feet at Wit 
Els, the end of the forest country towards Humansdorp. 
Each section remains open for two or three years. It is then put in order 
by the Forest Department and closed for forty years. Planting and thinning, 
more or less, according to circumstances, are required to put a section in order. 
The photo opposite (Plate XIII) shows logging in the mountain forests 
of the east of the Cape Province near King William’s Town, the first 
forests demarcated in South Africa. They were demarcated in 1884, 
and have been worked since, the mature timber, as marked by the Forest 
Department, being taken out. These forests are of the same character 
as the ‘‘ mixed forest’’ of New Zealand, and in a New-Zealand-like 
climate—rainfall about 60in., with three or four snowfalls each winter, 
An accompanying photo (not reproduced) shows the logs coming down 
a timber chute. 
For an excellent short account of forestry in South Africa the reader 
_may be referred to the American periodical, Forestry Quarterly for 
December, 1916. The writer, H. R. MacMillan (late Chief Forester, 
British Columbia), visited South Africa in 1916. He says,— 
South Africa, of all British dominions, and one might say of all English 
speaking countries, lost least time, after the first important settlement, in 
considering forestry. . . . South Africa, with only a fraction of the population 
and resources and a very much less interest at stake, has faced the problem of 
forest organization in a more statesmanlike manner than has any part of Canada, 
and as a result is building in a more permanent manner and on a sounder basis. 
This year (1918-19) South Africa is spending £194,000 on forestry. 
FOREST-WORKING IN THE Unttep States or AMERICA: Markina TREES 
FOR FELLING. 
In the national forests, where the forests are worked by the Forest 
Department, trees to be felled are previously inspected and marked by 
a forester. The process is thus described by a recent writer in the 
organ of the American Forestry Association :— 
In accordance with a previously prepared working-plan the officers who 
do the marking go through the stand selecting for cutting those trees 
which are mature or overmature, and those immature ones which are in 
Some respects defective or which need to be removed to thin crowded 
groups, 5O that those left in the group may have room to grow and 
develop properly. All the young and middle-aged trees which are sound and 
thrifty are left, and they will greatly increase in size and value before the next 
pees on that area, . Furthermore—and this is a vitally important 
ing—the removal of the diseased overmature trees has eliminated a vast 
ee tent of fungus disease, and materially decreased the opportunity for infection 
of healthy trees, so that the stand has not only been put in much healthier 
condition, but it has much be aot s 
Forestry,” May, 1917.) uch better chances of remaining healthy. (‘American 
