FORESTRY AND CONSERVATION 355 



impracticable to put it in such condition by artificial means hoeing 

 or plowing. 



It is, of course, quite practicable nay, sometimes very desir- 

 able to prepare the soil for the reception and germination of the 

 seed. Where undesirable undergrowth has started, it should be cut 

 out, and where the soil is deteriorated with weed growth or com- 

 pacted by the tramping of cattle, it should be hoed or otherwise 

 scarified, so that the seed may find favorable conditions. To let pigs 

 do the plowing and the covering of acorns is not an uncommon prac- 

 tice abroad. It is also quite proper, if the reproduction from the 

 seed of the surrounding mother trees does not progress satisfactorily, 

 to assist, when an opportunity is afforded, by planting such desir- 

 able species as were or were not in the composition of the original 

 crop. 



It may require ten, twenty, or forty years or more to secure 

 the reproduction of a wood lot in this way. A new growth, denser 

 and better than the old, with timber of varying age, will be the 

 result. 



Wind Mantle. A strip should surround the farmer's wood lot, 

 which he should keep as dense as possible, especially favoring under- 

 growth. This part, if practicable, should be kept reproduced as cop- 

 pice or by the method of selection, i. e., by taking out trees here and 

 there. When gaps are made, they should be filled, if possible, by in- 

 troducing shade-enduring kinds, which, like the spruces and firs and 

 beech, retain their branches down to the foot for a long time. This 

 mantle is intended to protect the interior against the drying influ- 

 ence of winds, which are bound to enter the small wood lot and de- 

 teriorate the soil. The smaller the lot, the more necessary and de- 

 sirable it is to maintain such a protective cover or windbreak. 



Coppice. Besides reproducing a wood crop from the seed of 

 mother trees or by planting, there is another reproduction possibly 

 by sprouts from the stump. This, to be sure, can be done only with 

 broad-leafed species, since conifers, with but few exceptions, do not 

 sprout from the stump. When a wood lot is cut over and over 

 again, the reproduction taking place by such sprouts we call coppice. 



Most wooded areas in the Eastern States have been so cut that 

 reproduction from seed could not take place, and hence we have 

 large areas of coppice, with very few seedling trees interspersed. 

 Sprouts do not develop into as good trees as the seedlings. They 

 grow faster, to be sure, in the beginning, but do not grow as tall 

 and are apt to be shorter lived. 



For the production of firewood, fence, and post material, cop- 

 pice management may suffice, but not for dimension timber. And 

 even to keep the coppice in good reproductive condition, care should 

 be taken to secure a certain proportion of seedling trees, since the 

 old stumps, after repeated cutting, fail to sprout and die out. Soil 

 and climate influence the success of the coppice; shallow soils pro- 

 duce weaker but more numerous sprouts and are more readily dete- 

 riorated by the repeated laying bare of the soil; a mild climate is 



