CHAPTER VII 



METHODS OF TREATMENT 



WHERE the woods are extensive it should be one of the 

 chief objects of the woodman to manage them in such a way 

 as to get a sustained and regular annual yield. All haphazard 

 working must be put an end to, and an endeavour should be 

 made to cut only that amount of timber which the forest is 

 capable of producing annually. The owner then knows that 

 his woods are not being overcut, and has the satisfaction of 

 being able to depend upon a more or less steady income from 

 them instead of receiving perhaps a large income one year and 

 very little in the next. 



Before putting into force a regular treatment the woodman 

 must decide as nearly as possible the age at which the woods 

 will give the most paying size of timber, or, in other words, 

 he must fix the rotation or the period in which the whole of 

 the woods shall be cut over once. He must also decide which 

 of the main sylvicultural systems, or methods of treatment, 

 will suit his purpose best. There are three main systems, 

 called high forest, coppice, and coppice-ivith-standards or copse. 



A wood is called high forest when it consists solely of seed- 

 ling trees, that is, of trees which have grown up from seed 

 sown artificially or naturally on the spot, or of plants raised 

 from seeds sown in a nursery ; the term is, however, sometimes 

 applied to a wood in which the trees are coppice shoots, 

 though only one shoot has been allowed to remain on the 

 stool to grow into a tree. 



All species can be grown in high forest, and produce of any 

 desired size can be obtained from such woods by fixing the 

 rotation according to the size required. 



F 2 



