On Coppice Wood; //s Cutting or Exploitation. 167 



to the stools is also caused by cutting during the prevalence of hard 

 frosts. To ensure an abundance of shoots during the following 

 summer, there is no period of cutting comparable to the month of 

 February and the earlier part of March. The period allowed for 

 clearing the woods often extends to the 1st of June, by which time 

 the shoots upon the stools are often in such an advanced stage that 

 irreparable injury is caused both by horses and wheels. It would 

 better answer the interests of proprietors to provide good roads and 

 insist upon an earlier clearance. 



The age at which a coppice should be cut must depend very much 

 upon situation, climate, soil, and the purposes for which such produce 

 is required. Ash and chestnut are often cut at eight, nine, or ten 

 years old, but the small quantity of heartwood contained in such 

 early cut poles and their consequent inferiority should have some 

 influence in checking the practice. From eleven to thirteen years is 

 a much better period, and if some of them become too large for hops 

 they always meet with a ready sale as "use-poles." Oak coppice 

 seldom pays more money than when felled and stripped at twenty- 

 four or twenty-five years' growth. 



Upon light sandy soils in some parts of Kent Spanish chestnut 

 thrives so well that it is no unusual thing for an acre to realize 

 nearly £60 at the time of cutting, and this upon land which would 

 be considered dear at an agricultural rent of 20s. per acre. 



Where coppice has become thin from the decay of stools or other 

 causes, and it is not deemed advisable to fill up with fresh plants 

 much may be done by the judicious layering of oak branches from 

 the existing stools. All that is required is to trench round 

 the stools to a depth of six inches or more, bend the branches 

 to the bottom of the trench and plash them, peg them fast, fix the soil 

 firmly round them, raise the top of the layer, and cut off at the 

 second eye above ground. This operation may be performed at 

 almost any ..season of the year. 



Where the decay of stool seems to be the result of too lono- a 

 continuance under one kind of wood it should be borne in mind that 

 oaks will succeed ash and vice versa. Beech also will grow up under 

 the shade of almost any other tree. 



In very damp situations an abundant crop of willow will sprint 

 up along a track or brushed road where brush of this kind has been 

 placed in the bottom. 



In a future paper I shall be happy to furnish particulars of sales 

 of timber and coppice, prices of forest work and produce in this 

 locality. 



