CHAP, i S Y L V A 3 



better and better : But this had need be in extraor- 

 dinary ground, otherwise you may do well to allow 

 them twelve or fifteen to fit them for the ax ; but 

 those of twenty years standing are better, and far 

 advance the price ; especially if oak, and ash, and 

 chesnut be the chief furniture ; and be sure you shall 

 lose nothing by this patience ; since all accidents con- 

 sider'd, the profit arising from copp'ces so manag'd, 

 (be the ground almost never so poor) shall equal, if 

 not exceed what is usually made by the plough or 

 grazing. Some of our old clergy spring-woods here- 

 tofore have been let rest till twenty five or thirty 

 years, and have prov'd highly worth the attendance ; 

 for by that time, even a seminary of acorns, will 

 render a considerable advance, as I have already ex- 

 emplified in the Northamptonshire lady. And if 

 copp'ces were so divided, as that every year there 

 might be some fell'd, it were a continual, and a 

 present profit : Seventeen years growth affords a 

 tolerable fell ; supposing the copp'ce of seventeen 

 acres, one acre might be yearly fell'd for ever; and so 

 more, according to proportion ; but though the seldom 

 fall yields the more timber, yet the frequent makes 

 the under-wood the thicker ; therefore at ten or twelve 

 years growth (says Mr. Cook) in shallow ground, and 

 fourteen in deeper : If many timber-trees grow in 

 your copp'ces which are to be cut down, fell both 

 them, and the under-wood as near the ground as may 

 be ; but this is to be understood where the wood is 

 very thick ; otherwise, 'tis advisable to stock-up the 

 thinner, especially in great timber, and to set in the 

 holes, elm, cherry, poplar, sallow, service ; and so 

 these trees which are apt to grow from the running- 

 root thicken the wood exceedingly ; whilst the very 



