196 BRITISH FOREST TREES 



treatment, high forest, copse, and coppice. As the most 

 valuable of our trees, it is favoured under the most varying 

 circumstances, and forms, outside of the true woodlands, 

 along with the elm the most characteristic feature in English 

 and lowland Scottish landscape. As High Forest it is to be 

 found forming pure or nearly pure forests on the deeper, 

 richer soils still preserved under woodland, and also in 

 mixed woods on undulating ground and upland and hilly 

 tracts, sometimes forming the major species, at others 

 scattered merely in groups, or patches, or only individually 

 throughout other species; principally associated with the 

 beech, it is also to be found along with alder and birch 

 on the moister, low-lying tracts with good soil. In high 

 forest of beech it is the principal standard retained to develop 

 throughout another period of rotation into timber of large 

 dimensions, and of highly remunerative quality. Throughout 

 the earlier periods of forestry its pannage and acorn harvest 

 had a value often far exceeding that of the timber produced. 

 As Standards in Copse it yields good returns, whilst still per- 

 mitting the growth of the underwood under its light foliage, 

 and on upland grazing grounds it brings in a very good 

 monetary return, besides often affording grateful shade and 

 shelter to the cattle, without damaging the grass when 

 planted far apart. Its reproductive power from the stool, 

 and the superior properties of its bark for tanning purposes, 

 make it in its proper place one of the most remunerative 

 forms of sylvicultural crops when treated as Coppice ; it is 

 willingly seen, too, among the coppice under standards, but 

 under the shade of the latter it seldom develops so satisfac- 

 torily as with a freer enjoyment of light and warmth, 

 and is more apt to be outgrown and suppressed by shade- 

 bearing species. 



By no other species of tree does the fall vary so much as 

 in the case of the oak; between the harvesting of coppice 





