In criticising this Polish system, and awarding it in its place among scientific systems, Herr Krause, after a multitude of definitions and extracts, comes to the conclusion that it is a high development of the method of equal yearly clearings. Its descent he traces from the system which prevailed in Brunswick at the commencement of this century. (It is said that the system of equal yearly portions was first devised by Frederick the Great of Prussia.) And he states that by a series of special alterations in the direction of completeness, and some improvements which he suggests, the Polish system of estimates may readily be brought up to the most modern form of methodical exploitation.
The method of exploitation referred to is known in France, as has been stated, as La Methode des Compartiments, in Germany as Die Fachwerke Method, here as the Scientific Method.
The system of Jardinage, felling a tree here and there as it might be wanted, was in France and other countries on the Continent of Europe extensively superseded more than two hundred years ago by exploitation a tire et aire,
in winch all the trees on a given area were felled with the exception of some left to bear seed, and to afford shade and shelter to seedlings. The areas so exploited frequently succeeded each other side by side in regular progression. Under the scientific method, the Fachwerke Method, or Methode des Compartiments, plots or patches of forest like to each other, but situated apart, are treated as if they formed a continuous wood, and are treated collectively as were the different areas in exploitation a tire et aire.
Where Jardinage is followed we have trees of varied ages growing confusedly mixed together, and injuring one another, the older and taller overgrowing the younger and impeding their growth, and the older becoming straggling and knotty, and of a height inferior to what they attained when they were more serried, while they are also less able to withstand the storm; and many, young and old alike, often become diseased, rarely appear well conditioned, and not unfrequently perish prematurely. Though some trees withstand and surmount all these evils, the product of a forest so treated is in a given time inferior both in quantity and in quality to what it might have been; and there is a tendency in the method of management to convert the forest into a scrub, and ultimately to destroy it altogether.
About the middle of the sixteenth century it began to be realised that the system followed had in it inherent defects, and these such as could scarcely be eradicated by a.ny attempted improvement to which it'could be subjected. But it was thought that the conservation of the forests might be assured by continuous reproduction if the fellings were confined to one portion of the forest, throughout one year, or a series of years, more or less prolonged, during which the trees growing elsewhere should be allowed undisturbed growth; while this should be allowed to recover itself during the much more lengthened period which would be required to go over not one but all of the other divisions of the forest or woodlands with which it was connected, and if necessary the extension of this to other forests or other woodlands.
Such was the Metliode a tire et aire, associated by many with the celebrated Ordinance of 1669; but sustained production was not thereby secured. Forests continued to disappear, and though this was attributable to abuses for which the system was not responsible, it was remarked that there was a great inequality in the products of successive fellings during successive periods; that there was a considerable loss of possible produce not only from difference in the productiveness of different patches in the same time, but more so from the circumstance that as some portions were necessarily cut down when the trees were too young, in other portions many trees, and even entire plots, were left standing so long waiting for their turn that they decayed before they came within the regular series of fellings.