152 PHEASANTS 



ash, or hazel, with alder in wet places and 

 chestnut on sandy soil. To ensure a 

 regular rotation of woodland crop, the 

 woods should be divided into equal 

 cutting areas, the number of which is 

 determined by the age to which the under- 

 wood can be profitably allowed to attain, 

 usually about twenty years, which period 

 serves to keep the standard trees clear of 

 side branches to a height of about thirty 

 feet. 



One cutting area is dealt with every 

 year, the mature timber trees felled, about 

 five tellers, or new standard trees, being 

 selected from each acre of underwood, and 

 the rest of the underwood cut. This area 

 should be shot over before the end of 

 November, giving three clear months for 

 the forester's work. Thus by the close of 

 March all disturbance should be at an end, 

 and the wood left quiet on the approach 

 of the nesting season. The woods would 

 thus be almost entirely covered with dense 

 stool-grown underwood of varying age, 

 interspersed by groups of standard timber 



