BRITISH FOREST TREES 195 



and more full-wooded boles are then produced, even although 

 the girth is large in the lower half. Where there is a demand 

 for crooks and strong knees of oak, such as were especially 

 required in former days for shipbuilding, and are even now 

 in good request for sailing craft, these assortments of timber 

 are best producible by oak standards in copse. 



Should there be a good market for tanning-bark, oak 

 coppice may often give very excellent returns, especially on 

 somewhat shallow, but otherwise fertile, soils with warm 

 sunny, southern and south-western exposures ; when treated 

 in hags with a rotation of fourteen to sixteen years, it 

 yields the smooth-barked variety of tanning material most 

 prized for the preparation of leather for bootmakers. 

 Coppice-woods for the production of tanning-bark should be 

 formed pure on good soil, as the stool-shoots from the oak 

 are vigorous, and amply suffice to protect the soil against 

 insolation even when worked with a low rotation. Although 

 the harvesting can only be begun whilst the sap is in flow, care 

 must also be taken to complete it as soon as possible, in order 

 that the shoots reproduced from the stools may be able to 

 harden properly before the early frosts set in in autumn. 

 The best time for cutting is in May, when the young flush 

 of foliage is taking place. The comparatively very early 

 returns, their high monetary value, the relatively small capital 

 represented by the soils plus the growing-stock on the four- 

 teenth to sixteenth annual falls, and the general security and 

 simplicity of this form of treatment, all speak in favour of 

 oak coppice on good upland soil, wherever the demand for the 

 bark exists or can be created. There is not the slightest 

 doubt that there are many thousands of acres of land now 

 lying idle along railway cuttings and embankments, which 

 are perfectly well adapted for oak coppice, and would yield 

 highly remunerative returns under proper treatment. 



The oak thus finds its place in all methods of sylvicultural 



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