208 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



being cut into first of all, to prevent tearing of the bark down the 

 stem — and the wound-surfaces should be well coated with tar to 

 prevent wound-rot. Tarring should be repeated subsequently, till 

 the wounds cicatrise completely. But this operation, which has 

 already in some of the copses been carried out to a considerable 

 extent, must be conducted with caution. If proceeded with to 

 any excessive degree, it is very apt to cause a flush of adventitious 

 shoots along the lower portion of the stem, which may lead to 

 stag-headedness and decay of the crown of the tree. Such pruning 

 of branches should be done as soon as possible after the fall of the 

 leaf in autumn, when the trees contain their minimum of sap and 

 moisture. Apart from such partial treatment, there is no remedy 

 for the excessive branch development and dissipation of vital 

 energy in this manner. Standards of this nature can only be 

 felled and utilised as soon as convenient, their places being 

 gradually filled by the retention of young stores of better growth. 

 This measure forms also the only practicable way of removing the 

 second and third objections to the existing condition of the copses; 

 for it enables the young stores to be more or less regularly dis- 

 tributed over each area, in greater or less numbers according to the 

 productivity of the soil ; and it ultimately furnishes a regular 

 gradation of standards, each class varying in age by the twenty 

 years which form the period of rotation of the coppice. 



Owing to the great irregularity of the present crops, in which old 

 standards are frequent but young stores scarce, the speedy forma- 

 tion of different classes of standards, varying regularly according to 

 age, can only be achieved in course of time. With this end in view, 

 the storing of overwood should be regulated as follows : — 



Storing of Oak Standards in Copse, the Rotation of the 

 Fall being once every 20 Years. 



Note. — For ash, the number of standards may be 50 per cent, in excess 

 of above for oak ; and mixtures of oak and ash as overwood should be 

 calculated on these bases. 



