[bannie]

It seems to me that a good culling eliminates 1/3 of a population. That seems to be the amount by which every successful plague decimates a civilization.

[ThanhPhero]

culling eliminates 1/3 of a population. That seems to be the amount by which every successful plague decimates a civilization.

Culling by a third is much more serious trimming than a mere decimation would be.Decimation is specifically the destruction of a tenth, that is one of ten equal parts, The Reds in the Russian Civil War actually decimated army units that failed to achieve an objective or retreated. They lined up the unit and shot every tenth man. Decimation is from the Greek word for ten-tenth.