THE CONVERSION OF STORED COPPICE INTO HIGHWOOD. 99 
XII. Zhe Conversion of Stored Coppice into Highwood, and how 
I became converted to the latter System of Sylviculture. By 
H. J. MarsHatt, Gayton Hall, Ross, Hereford. -« 
Some fourteen years ago about 180 acres of stored coppice 
came under my charge, and, very naturally, it became to me 
an object of much interest. The cutting interval had been 
eighteen years, and for nine years I followed this course of 
cropping. From the first, however, I was dissatisfied with the 
system, and year by year I became more and more convinced 
of its faultiness; but it had been followed for such a length 
of time, and was so general throughout the locality, that I 
had not the courage to break away from it all at once. As 
a matter of fact, it seemed to me to have every fault that a 
system of wood-culture could possibly have. At each fall all 
the underwood and about three-fourths of the standards and 
tellers were cut, with the result that the standards and young 
trees which were left threw out lateral shoots in order to protect 
their roots from the sun’s rays, while the older and _ higher 
trees swept off the leaders of the lower ones, and thereby 
checked their upward growth. The result of all this was that 
hardly any tree, with the exception of those standing in 
the dingles, was more than 4o feet high, although stored as 
often as four or five times: ze¢., they were 72 or go years 
old, and they were heavily branched to within 12 or 15 
feet of the ground. The storing was carried out under great 
difficulties owing to the density of the underwood, and as 
this was done “ by the piece,” it is scarcely to be wondered at 
that the storer, after struggling up to a standard with his 
paint-pot and brush, should have marked as many as he could 
at the same spot before he resumed his journey through the thick 
copse to mark others. As a consequence, very few young stores 
had sufficient head-room, and as they could make no upward 
growth they came down at the next “fall,” distorted and stunted, 
and scarcely worth cartage to the pits. I had fully realised all 
the drawbacks to the system, when I chanced to have a talk 
with a charcoal-burner who was at work on some cordwood, 
derived from the superabundant lateral branches alluded to 
above. ‘Together we reckoned up that there were 70 tons of 
stuff to char on about 6 acres of ground, and that as his 
