ioo OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 



beech, which can not only bear a greater amount 

 of shade, but also preserves the moisture and the 

 general quality of the soil by overshadowing it 

 better, and by enriching it with the mould formed 

 from its heavy fall of foliage. 



Though still possessing in many parts good 

 value as coppice, it is rather as a timber tree of 

 the copses and of the highwoods that the oak has 

 now, and will in the future continue to have, its 

 greatest value. Hence it may perhaps be profit- 

 able to give a little closer attention to these par- 

 ticular methods of growing crops of oak for the 

 timber market. In the great majority of British 

 woodlands oak is chiefly to be found in the copses. 

 It is the principal tree among the overwood, and 

 has always been the predominant standard from 

 time immemorial. But the treatment there 

 accorded to it has ever been merely a haphazard 

 sort of rule-of-thumb measure. Even James I.'s 

 command that in the New Forest * twelve stan- 

 dels be left in every acre/ and that 'all saplings 

 of oak that are likely to make timber ' should be 

 excepted when carrying out the fellings, though 

 a great move in an economic direction, did not 

 go far enough to ensure more or less regular 



