100 European Plans of Forest Management. 



so as to be liable to injury, and the brush should be burned as soon 

 as may be if possible in the spring of the same year. 



382. Roads are of first importance for facilitating the removal of 

 products, and \\hen kept free from dry litter, they afford lines of 

 defense in case of forest fires. 



383. Sometimes one or two agricultural crops are taken off at the 

 time of cutting of a coppice. The benefit in exceptional cases may 

 be considerable, but as a rule it will do more harm than good. 



384. One of the most important applications of the method of 

 coppice growth, in Europe, is for the production of oak bark, to be 

 used in tanning, as will be elsewhere more fully noticed. 



385. As the trees in a coppice do not come to maturity, they seldom 

 tend to seed themselves, or if this occurs it is apt to result that in- 

 ferior species of easy and rapid growth may get an undue start, and 

 tend to supplant the more valuable kinds. It is always advisable 

 to notice the void places in a coppice woodland, and plant or sow 

 them at the proper season. In this, attention should be given to 

 favor the more valuable kinds. A proper mixture of species will 

 sometimes yield a greater quantity of material and more profit, in a 

 given time, than when it is all alike. 



386. As coppice woods must be cut in the season when the sap is 

 about to start, the durability of the wood is not so great as when 

 cut in the dormant season. For some uses this is not important, 

 but in others, as in the case of railroad ties, posts, and the like, it 

 becomes a question for consideration as to whether the season of cut- 

 ting should not be that which tends to greater durability, at the risk 

 of failure of reproduction by coppice-growth. 



387. It is to be remarked that the best success in reproduction 

 after cutting, occurs in rich and humid soil, and in a damp climate, 

 and that as we pass to those that are dryer the chances become 

 less, until we approach those of the arid type, when they disappear 

 altogether. From the greater dry ness of our climate, as compared 

 with that of Europe, we can not so uniformly depend upon this 

 method as there. 



388. In a given species it is observed that the tendency to send 

 up vigorous sprouts diminishes with age, and that finally it ceases 

 almost entirely. We should not therefore depend upon the stumps 

 of trees of large size for the growth of coppice wood. In cases 

 where it is desirable to hasten their decay, to get room for others, 



