THE OTHER HARDWOODS 167 



very long time. Indeed, in reproductive power it 

 excels our indigenous trees, as stools can throw 

 out shoots even up to about one hundred years of 

 age. Hence it forms an excellent underwood in 

 copses where the overshadowing is not excessive, 

 though it can hardly be truly reckoned among the 

 shade-bearing kinds of trees. Grown as coppice 

 under standards of larch, Scots pine, and oak, it 

 will often yield good returns on land of a deep 

 sandy nature ; and in conifer plantations requiring 

 underplanting it will be found worthy of favour- 

 able consideration. On rather poor classes of 

 land, except where it is apt to suffer from late 

 frosts in spring, it will sometimes yield better 

 returns as coppice than any other kind of under- 

 wood. It therefore seems specially adapted for 

 the underplanting of old larch and pine woods 

 which have become so open in canopy as to be 

 urrable any longer to protect the soil from the ex- 

 hausting and deteriorating effects of sun and 

 wind. When thus forming underwood it should 

 be cut over for the first time at about ten years 

 of age, and then worked with a rotation of about 

 fifteen years till the overwood comes to the fall. 

 In cutting coppice, low felling, close to the 



