The former mode of treating the futaie, called the garden system, was to cut the trees individually as they arrived at maturity, but, in the best regulated forests, this practice has been abandoned for the German method, which embraces not only the securing of the largest immediate profit, but the replanting of the forest, and the care of the young growth. This is effected in the case of a forest, whether natural or artificial, which is to be subjected to regular management, by three operations. The first of these consists in felling about one third of the wood, in such way as to leave convenient spaces for the growth of young trees. The remaining two-thirds are relied upon to replant the vacancies, by natural sowing, which they seldom or never fail to do. The seedlings are watched, are thinned out when too dense, the ill formed and sickly, as well as those of inferior value, and the shrubs and thorns which might otherwise choke or too closely shade them, are pulled up. When they have attained sufficient strength and development of foliage to bear or to require more light and air, the second step is taken, by removing a suitable proportion of the old trees which had been spared at the first cutting; and when, finally, they are hardened enough to bear frost and sun without other protection than that which they mutually give to each other, the remainder of the original forest is felled, and the wood now consists wholly of young and vigorous trees. This result is obtained after about twenty years. At convenient periods afterward, the unhealthy stocks and those injured by wind or other accidents are removed, and in some instances the growth of the remainder is promoted by irrigation or by fertilizing applications.[298] When the forest is approaching to maturity, the original processes already described are repeated; and as, in different parts of an extensive forest, they would take place in different zones, it would afford indefinitely an annual crop of firewood and timber.
The duties of the forester do not end here. It sometimes happens that the glades left by felling the older trees are not sufficiently seeded, or that the species, or _essences_, as the French oddly call them, are not duly proportioned in the new crop. In this case, seed must be artificially sown, or young trees planted in the vacancies.