498 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



SPRUCU ruUEST IN THE JURA. 



on the stump it is called a moderne and 

 is 40 years old and about 8 inches in 

 diameter. At the sixtieth year a third 

 crop of sprouts is taken and the 

 moderne becomes an ancien and bears 

 seed abundantly. The ancicns start a 

 thick growth of seedlings all over the 

 forest floor and after two more crops of 

 sprouts the original stumps die but the 

 seedlings have grown to 40-year trees, 

 which are forthwith cut to stump and 

 the ancicns harvested, putting the for- 

 est in shape for coppice again. Horse 

 chestnut coppice is usually managed in 

 "simple coppice" with poplar balivage, 

 that is, the whole crop of sprouts is 

 taken every twenty years and the pop- 

 lars held for shade. 



The yield in poles, tan bark and 

 lattice stock from coppice management 

 is tremendous and the returns are quick, 

 so that in Central France, where there 

 is a ready market for cordwood, turn- 

 ing wood, tool handles and tan bark, 

 coppice management is very extensive. 

 It requires a rich clay soil as the roots 

 feed excessively. If many of the 

 stumps are allowed to produce modernes 

 and ancicns the sprout crop will suffer 

 from shade, but more heavy timber will 



be yielded so that in the judgment of 

 the forester almost any yield desired 

 for any particular market can be man- 

 aged. In our own country native chest- 

 nut is the principal coppice crop, and 

 telegraph poles, ties, and lumber for 

 interior trim offers the best market, 

 three or more shoots are allowed to 

 grow to 10 and 12 inch poles per stump, 

 yielding at the same lime seed for re- 

 generation. 



REFORESTING MOUNTAIN SLOPES 



The necessity for the hundreds of 

 millions of francs that France has been 

 forced to spend on this w-ork had its 

 beginnings in the orgy of unrestricted 

 cvttting which took place during the 

 French Revolution and the Directory. 

 Under the Bourbons the laws governing 

 cuttings in private forests were severe 

 and drastic, unnecessarily so, perhaps, 

 so that, with the sweeping away of the 

 monarchy and. all its laws, all restraint 

 was removed and an era of complete 

 denudation of mountain forests set in. 

 Furthermore, the herbage which sprang 

 was given over to unrestricted pastur- 

 age so that neither seedlings nor bushes 



