PLAN FOR BLACKMOOR, BRADSHOTT. AND TEMPLE WOODS. 



207 



C. — Thinnings, Etc. — Continued. 



Note. — The light thinnings recommended should od\j extend, during the 

 next five or six years, to the removal of suppressed, sickly, or badly cankered 

 stems ; but at each time of thinning, all snags of dead branches should be 

 cut or sawu off close to the stem. The subsequent thinnings may be carried 

 out much more freely, in some cases even extending to partial clearance and 

 the formation of a new crop as underwood. 



PART III —MODE OF CARRYING OUT THE FELLINGS 

 AND OTHER OPERATIONS RECOMMENDED. 



Detailed recommendations have been made in the Field Book 

 as to treatment of the various woods, but it may be convenient to 

 give .here a general summary of the operations intended to be 

 carried out : — 



(a) As regards the Standards in the Copses. — The overwood at 

 present existing is at variance with economic treatment in three 

 respects, namely : — 



1. The trees run far too much into branches, instead of forming 

 clean, long boles. 



"2. The standards are nothing like regularly distributed over the 

 falls. 



3. There is no regular gradation of age-classes in the overwood. 



These defects can only very gradually be remedied, and it will 

 take at least three periods of rotation (of twenty years each) to 

 bring the copses into the normal condition which the recom- 

 mendations of the Working Plan, as now framed, aim at ultimately 

 attaining. 



Something may, however, at once be done to correct the 

 excessive branch development and to improve the marketable 

 value of the stems by the removal of lower branches not exceeding 

 about three inches in diameter. When this is done, the branches 

 should be clean cut or sawn off close to the trunk — the lower side 



