cH.vii REGENERATION BY COPPICE 191 



Fig. 70. 



stool never gets completely covered up, and decay sets 

 in from the centre of the stool and gradually spreads to 

 the foot of the shoot (Fig. 69). 



The nearer to the level of the soil that the shoots 

 can be induced to spring, the more likely are they 

 to develop independent 

 roots (see Fig. 69 above), 

 and the greater the prob- 

 able longevity of the 

 stools. When shoots 

 spring on a high stool, 

 they must depend for 

 sustenance entirely on 

 the stool ; and if the 

 latter decays in the 

 centre, as must be the 

 ultimate fate of most 

 large stools, they ulti- 

 mately stand on the rim 

 of a hollow cup (Fig. 70), 

 which is steadily getting weaker and less capable of 

 nourishing the shoots. For this reason European foresters 

 teach us that stools should be cut flush with the ground. 



This rule can, no doubt, be followed in certain parts 

 of the Tropics, such as have not great extremes of 

 drought and rainfall ; and where the sun does not exert 

 too strongly a desiccating influence on the stools. In 

 such places the woody part of the stool is apt to split 

 and shrink and to tear itself away from the bark, thus 

 breaking the cambium -zone. This can be mitigated to 

 some extent by heaping earth and leaves over the stools, 

 but not always ; and it has been recommended that the 

 stools be cut at 10 to 15 cm. (4 to 6 inches) from the 

 ground. In places liable to floods, also, it has been 

 found that stools which get covered with water die 

 down ; this was the case, for example, with stools of 

 Acacia arabica, on the banks of the Nile, in the Sudan, 

 where the water rose up to about breast-height durino- 

 the floods. In such places it became necessary to cut 



