THE SELF-SOWN OAK WOODS OF SUSSEX. 195 



spring the oak trees are inspected, and such thinning as is required 

 is then done. If the timber only was considered, a shorter interval 

 of, say, five or six years, would be better ; but as the underwood is 

 an important portion of the profits, it is impossible to make the 

 most of it until it becomes large enough for conversion into hop- 

 poles, hoops, &c. As to the age at which the timber causes injury 

 to underwood, supposing there is a full plant of tellars at any given 

 fall, for the next two cuttings (say, for twenty years) there will be 

 little difference found in the value of the underwood, which averages 

 from L.8 to L.10 per acre. The next three cuttings will be reduced, 

 on an average, about one-half, and afterwards the periodical cutting 

 will be sold for a very small sum, viz., L.1 to L.l, 10s. per acre, 

 which will not pay for rates, fencing, and ditching. 



Pruning Oak Woods. — Not only is pruning unnecessary — for, if 

 thinning is done gradually, allowing the oak trees to draw each other 

 up to such height as may be required, the lower branches will of 

 themselves drop off — but it is actually injurious, as every timber 

 merchant or village carpenter knows. And the houghing of oak 

 trees materially affects the value of the timber when felled, though 

 the tree, when pruned, may be only 20 or 30 years, and, when cut, 

 150 years old. When the boughs are thrown off by nature, as they 

 are most perfectly under careful management, the bark gradually 

 closes over the part from which the bough dropped, and it becomes 

 impossible to define the former position of the bough, nor would 

 any sign of it be found when the tree is cut ; but, should the tree 

 be pruned, an unsound knot, or a sore in the tree, is at once formed, 

 allowing the water to penetrate the trunk where the branch was cut 

 off. This will rot, and a black dead piece of wood will be found in 

 the centre of the tree when it is cut. The bark will, no doubt, 

 usually close over the wound made ; but this will take some years, 

 and, before it is closed, the mischief will be done ; and, in old trees, 

 it not unfrequently happens that the perfect closing over the wound 

 by young wood causes a species of dry rot. 



Thinning and Clearing. — As I stated above, the time for thinning 

 woods is when the underwood is cut. The greater part of the timber 

 of the weald in question is grown with underwood. The underwood 

 is cut, on an average, once in ten years. At each cutting, trees 

 which have attained a good size, and show symptoms of diminished 

 growth, are felled, and open spaces are thus obtained for a fresh 

 crop. The same opportunity is taken for thinning the young tellars, 

 and of saving such further young plants as have come up since the 



VOL. VII. PART II. o 



