HARVESTING BARK. 641 



(a) Preparatory work. As has been stated already, in most 

 oak-bark woods there is a mixture of other species with the 

 oak. Partly in order to obtain more room and time for the 

 business of peeling the bark, partly to avoid deterioration in 

 value of the wood of the mixed species if it is cut during the 

 season of growth, but chiefly in order to expedite the peeling 

 operations, all the mixed wood in an oak-bark coppice is 

 felled at a sufficiently early date so that it may be removed 

 from the felling-area before the peeling commences. This 

 is usually during the winter before the peeling. At the 

 same time, in many places, all oakwood that cannot be 

 stripped, epicormic branches, and shoots growing more or less 

 horizontally along the ground, are removed. In the Oden- 

 wald, the side-branches are removed from the oak-shoots, as 

 far as the woodcutter can reach with his billhook. 



When also cereal crops are cultivated, as soon as the mixed 

 wood has been felled and the soil is no longer frozen, the first 

 cultivation of the ground around the oak-stools is effected. The 

 sods of grass or heather thus loosened dry better than if the 

 work was undertaken only at the end of the peeling, when the 

 time for sowing is approaching. Whenever there are standards 

 over the underwood, those intended to be felled are marked as 

 soon as the mixed wood has been felled. The felling of these 

 standards, if they are at all large, naturally stands over until 

 the oak-coppice has been felled. 



(b) Season for Peeling. Oak can be peeled at any time from 

 May till the middle of July, but peeling should be effected as 

 soon as the buds begin to shoot, which, according to locality, 

 is from the end of April till the middle of May,* and at the 

 first appearance of the foliage, the bark is peeled most easily. 

 In extensive woods, as a rule, the work is commenced after the 

 first flow of sap, as soon as the bark is removable, and is then 

 conducted as rapidly as possible : firstly, on account of the 

 comparative ease with which peeling can be done early in the 

 season ; secondly, so that the young shoots may mature their 

 wood before they become endangered by autumn-frosts, and 

 finally, because it is probable that there is more tannin in the 



* In England this is from the third week in April till about the third week 

 (f May, in Scotland nlont, a. mouth later. A. D. Webster. " Practical Forestry." 

 F.U. T T 



