METHODS OF TREATMENT 101 



but better timber is obtained if they are left in groups, each 

 group consisting of standards of the same age. 



The age of the standards will always be some multiple of 

 the rotation of the coppice ; thus, if the coppice rotation is 

 twenty years, the standards on the area cut in any year will be 

 twenty, forty, sixty, eighty, and one hundred years, and so on 

 up to the desired age. While cutting the coppice care is 

 taken not to cut any saplings which will do for standards ; if 

 these are absent good coppice shoots may even be left for this 

 purpose. If no saplings worth leaving can be found, young 

 trees are planted in the spaces to form future standards. 

 When the coppice has formed thicket again, periodical clean- 

 ings should be made to clear the saplings from any shoots 

 which are threatening to damage them. 



In a well-managed coppice-with-standards there should 

 be found on any area standards of several ages, though this is 

 seldom the case in English woods owing to the neglect to 

 plant in new saplings, or to allowing them, if planted, to be 

 killed out by the coppice. 



Existing woods have often two faults : first the standards, 

 usually oak, are grown singly and far apart, with the result 

 that they are much branched and produce short timber only ; 

 secondly, the coppice consists chiefly of hazel, which is now of 

 no value. Such woods may be improved as follows. After a 

 cut has been made, assuming that the rotation is twenty years, 

 about 400 strong plants should be planted per acre in groups. 

 About 100 of these may be oak, 250 ash, and 50 larch, syca- 

 more, and other desired species. These grow on and should 

 be visited every four years to cut back all coppice shoots in- 

 juring them. At the next cutting about 50 of the best of these 

 trees, now twenty years old, will be reserved, about 25 being 

 oak, and 25 ash, larch, &c., another 400 plants being planted 

 as before. At the third cut the 50 standards, now forty years 

 old, will be thinned where necessary, leaving about 30, of 

 which half are oak. At the fourth cut they are reduced to 15 



