42 PLANTING. 



time, as when the stool is kept within an inch or two of the surface of the 

 ground. When the parent stool is a foot or more in height from the root, 

 it becomes divided into pointed rugged parts, and if a tiller or shoot, left 

 lor a tree, is situated near to one or other of these, the stub is in time 

 encompassed by the bark of the young tree wholly or partially, which 

 Vmish and nnsoundness in the timber, as well as obstruction to 

 its prosperous growth. The stumps of coppice stools should, therefore, 

 >-ut near to the surface of the ground, and the face of the stubs as 

 level and free from fractures as can be. The kinds of trees most 

 profitable for coppice produce are those which possess the reproductive 

 power in the highest degree ; these were before enumerated at page 34. 

 Ii may be unnecessary here to observe that the non-reproductive trees, such 

 1 the pine and fir tribes, are unfit for the purposes of coppice. The 

 shoot, or tiller, being selected with due attention to these essential points, 

 all other shoots belonging to the parent stool should be cut away close to 

 the root. The young tree should then receive the same treatment as other 

 trees reared by seed or transplanting. Although, under any circumstances, 

 it cannot be recommended to convert a coppice wood into a timber grove, 

 nevertheless, should the circumstance of local demand for timber trees be 

 considerable, it is a highly profitable practice to allow a certain number of 

 the most select oak tillers to remain for timber. Should the number 

 finally left to become timber trees not exceed thirty on the space of an 

 acre, the coppice produce will not receive any injury to be put in competi- 

 tion with the value of the trees retained. Were one hundred select 

 tillers left on the cutting or fall of a coppice, and were the periodical 

 falls made at eighteen years intervals of time, on the second cutting 

 these tillers would be thirty-six years old, and worth from 10s. to 12s. 

 each. At this period of growth twenty-five of the number should be 

 taken away, leaving an average distance between those that remain of 

 about twenty-four feet. At the next fall the trees will have attained to 

 fiit\ jrrowth, and will afford seventeen trees to be thinned out, 



of the value of 22s. each. At seventy-two years' growth the value will be 

 increased to 38*. each tree, and allowing fifteen trees to be thinned out. 

 At the fourth, or last thinning, the trees will be ninety years of growth, 

 and worth at least 50*. each, leaving thirty timber trees, of which a part 

 will IK- fit for ship-building, and exceed in value the fee-simple of the 

 land. Land requiring a period of eighteen years to produce coppice-wood 

 i cutting or a fall, cannot be worth more yearly than 1(>\. per acre in 

 hn-hiindry : eon-equently the rent of the land and cost of culture of the 

 cop; .-red by these thinnings of the timber trees, leaving periodi- 



cally the proper coppice produce, and at the termination of one hundred 

 the valuable trees above mentioned as clear profit. 



The a<re at which coppices should be cut down varies according to the 



soil and their quickness of growth. Nine years may be considered the 



shortest period, and thirty years the longest, as oak-bark, which constitutes 



rt of' the produce, does not improve in quality alter that. age. 



OWth is about an average period for coppice-wood, and 



nuns from b;uk and wood :i\l. an acre*. 



The conipriiiitive merits of the three different modes of rearing forest 

 on.-idered at the head of this chapter, will have 



:q>|" in the facts brought forward, to be greatly in favour of 



.hinting young tiers of proper sixes and age, from nursery beds to 



their tin: whether in regard to economy in the first and subse- 



nbtauces of coppices affording returns of 50/. sterling profit per acre. 



