106 METHODS OF TREATMENT 



standing crop may then be allowed to grow on, with necessary 

 thinnings periodically, till it is fifty to sixty years of age, by 

 which time a considerable amount of saleable timber will be 

 obtained. It can then be clear cut and the new crop formed 

 by planting, or in some cases it will be possible to obtain 

 natural regeneration. This method delays the formation of 

 true high forest, and the timber will not be first-class, as the 

 trees are stool shoots and are often rotten at the butt ; on 

 the other hand the cost of planting is saved, and small stuff 

 which may be hardly saleable is allowed to grow on to a fair 

 size. This method is being carried out with success in oak 

 and beech woods on the Tintern estate, belonging to the 

 Crown, where the coppice is now some twenty-five years old, 

 the intention being to clean cut the crop at fifty or sixty years 

 of age. 



When carrying out this method, care must be taken not to 

 convert too large an area at one time. Thus if the total area 

 is 600 acres and the old coppice rotation was twenty years, 

 the area cut annually has been 30 acres. If now this area of 

 30 acres is converted annually, at the end of twenty years the 

 oldest wood will only be forty years of age, while the crop 

 will probably not mature till sixty years is reached. There 

 will thus be nothing to cut from the fortieth to the sixtieth 

 year. To prevent this, one must convert a smaller area 

 annually. 



In this example, if the future wood is considered likely to 

 be mature at sixty years, it will be necessary to take forty 

 years to convert it, because the oldest coppice is already 

 twenty years old to start with. Thus 15 acres must be 

 converted annually. 



The best procedure is to select 150 acres of the oldest 

 coppice and to convert this in the first period of ten years. 

 Another 150 acres of the next oldest coppice is left alone, to 

 be converted in the second period of ten years. The remain- 

 ing 300 acres is managed for the first twenty years as ordinary 



