226 FORESTRY IN THE UNITED KINGDOM. 



and similar timber trees, they can be recommended onl}- in 

 the case of really fertile lands, and then the stool-shoots must 

 be periodically reduced in size and height, until the seedling 

 plants, especially the oak, can hold their own against the 

 coj^pice. 



When interplanting coi^pice woods it is essential that the 

 plants should be given the best possible chance of holding 

 their own against the stool shoots ; hence vigorous plants 

 with a well developed root system should be chosen, and 

 they should be planted into pits. None of that barbarous 

 system called notching, under which the roots are all pushed 

 to one side. 



A few words about silver fir and spruce. In many cases 

 these species may be planted in coppice woods. They stand 

 much shade, especially the silver fir, and wdien they have 

 once commenced to go ahead, they will speedily overtop the 

 copi^ice shoots. The author has, since 1894, planted spruce 

 in coppice on an area of 2,000 acres, so far with complete 

 success. He has found the cost of going over the areas, to 

 help the spruce against the coppice shoots, very small, and in 

 plantations seven years old the spruce does not require any 

 further help. The value of spruce timber in Britain is at 

 present small, but if the trees are grown in fully stocked 

 woods, they will produce timber of a high qualit}', because 

 the annual rings w'ill be narrower and the stems free of 

 branches to a good height. As to quantity, spruce is a good 

 producer ; on soil of fair quality, 100 cubic feet, according to 

 quarter-girth measurement, per acre and year may safely be 

 relied on. The author has a spruce wood forty years old, 

 situated on a rather steep south-eastern slope, the under- 

 lying rock being clay-slate, at an elevation of 1,100 feet 

 above the sea, which has produced 127 cubic feet quarter- 

 girth measurement per acre and year. Such woods will 

 pay a fair rate of interest on the capital invested in 

 them, apart from any rise in the price of timber in the 

 future. 



