150 PHEASANTS 



throughout the country, while coppice of 

 ash, alder, hazel, birch, and sweet chestnut 

 was extensively cultivated in the central 

 and southern counties of England to meet 

 a steady demand for hop poles, charcoal 

 for the making of gunpowder, and fire- 

 wood. But times have changed ; the 

 tanners will no longer pay for oak bark 

 what it costs to collect ; hops are grown 

 on post -and -wires; and pure coppice 

 woods now show no margin of profit, and 

 cannot hold any place in rural economy. 



Chestnut coppice is perhaps the one 

 exception to this general rule, its rapid 

 growth — under favourable conditions 

 cultivation on the short rotation of eight 

 years having been found practicable — 

 coupled with a steady and sufficient 

 demand for the young wood in the manu- 

 facture of the light fencing known as 

 chestnut paling, having made this a 

 valuable crop of late years. 



This branch of forest industry is how- 

 ever necessarily dependent on soil and 

 situation, and for the most part it is only 



