358 SYLVA AMERICANA. 



vice versa in better soils, authorizing a larger expenditure in the 

 preparation, in the size of the plants, and in the mode of plant- 

 ing, a comparatively superior number of trees of increased value 

 will be produced at each periodical thinning. These results are 

 certain to follow judicious planting. 



The third and last mode of rearing forest trees proposed to be 

 discussed at the head of this chapter, is that of selecting the supe- 

 rior shoots of coppice stools, and training them to full-grown 

 timber trees. The oak, on account of the value of its bark, is 

 more frequently reared in this way than the elm, ash, and chesnut. 

 The timber of coppice trees is in general faulty, and of inferior 

 quality to that reared from seeds. Where care, however, is 

 taken in the selection of the shoots from healthy and not over- 

 aged coppice stools, timber of the best quality may be obtained 

 from them. 



The produce of coppice stools consists of materials for fence 

 wood, fuel, besoms, &;c. Poles and bark are the most valuable 

 of this produce, where the practice is to leave no standards, or 

 saplings of timber. It is, however, perfectly clear, that when a 

 wood or coppice offers to the purchaser produce of various sizes 

 convertible to various uses, along with full-grown timber for navy 

 purposes, the sale is more readily effected, and generally on 

 better terms, than when the produce consists of smaller wood 

 only. In making choice of the shoots of coppice stools to be 

 trained for timber trees, great care should be had to select none 

 but such as are straight and vigorous, and which originate as near 

 to the roots of the stool as possible. The neglect of this latter 

 circumstance is the chief cause of the unsoundness of coppice- 

 reared timber, particularly at the root or butt end of the bole. 

 The parent wood of coppice stools is most frequently suffered to 

 rise too high from the roots, consequently the shoots emitted from 

 it never grow with so much vigor, or attain to so great a size in 

 a given space of time, as when the stool is kept within an inch 

 or two of the surface of the ground. When the parent stool is a 

 foot or more in height from the root, it becomes divided into 

 pointed rugged parts, and if a tiller or shoot, left for a tree, is sit- 

 uated near to one or other of these, the stub is in time encompassed 



