BRITISH FOREST TRI I - 21 



hack to the stool so as to force it to reproduce itself hy means 

 of stool shoots, and of stoics or suckers from the roots, the 

 method of treatment is termed coppicing . an amalgamation 

 of the two systems, in which at each periodic fall or clear- 

 ance of the coppice-growth a certain proportion of trees 

 remains of ages varying according to the number of falls 

 through which they have been left standing, is termed copse, 1 

 coppice under standards, or stored coppice, the poles and 

 trees that are allowed to remain being standards and the 

 coppice-growth forming the underwood or undergrou<th. 



Timber crops are either regenerated by natural reproduc- 

 tion through self-sown seed and by means of coppice-shoots 

 or root-suckers, or by artificial reproduction through the 

 sowing of seed, or the planting out of seedlings from seed- 

 beds, or of transplants, as seedlings are named when they 

 have been transferred once or oftener from the seed-beds 

 to nursery beds, or by layering of living branches by means 

 of bringing them partially under soil and allowing them to 

 develop rootlets from the dormant buds and small shoots, 

 or, finally, by the planting of slips or cuttings of species that 

 form roots easily through the continuance of cambial activity. 



In order fully to utilise the productive capacity of the 

 soil, it is necessary that the stock should be sufficiently dense 

 to form a. full or close canopy, as the more the complete canopy 

 or jinrmal density is broken or interrupted, the less able is the 

 crop to improve the productive capacity of the soil, or to 

 safeguard it against deterioration through insolation and 

 dry winds. The number of plants per acre necessary to 



1 Copse is the proper English term identical with the Mittflwald, or 

 composition forest of Germany, and the 7'uillis sous futaic of France. 

 I'iifc Gilpin's J-'orctt Scenery, edited by Dick Lander, 1834, vol. i. 

 p. 301: "The copse is a species of scenery composed commonly 

 >f forest trees intermixed with brushwood, which latter is periodically 

 cut down in twelve, thirteen, or fourteen years." 



