280 OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 



the time comes when light-demanding crops, like 

 larch and Scotch pine, require to be partially 

 cleared and underplanted, usually at an age vary- 

 ing from thirty to forty-five years, according to 

 the soil and the past treatment accorded to the 

 crop. In some plantations known to me the 

 ravages of fungous disease have been such that 

 patches of thirty-year-old larch have had to be 

 thinned so freely in the past on account of 

 canker that underplanting is already requisite, 

 even without the clearance of any of the re- 

 maining stems, except such as are now also 

 badly cankered. 



As already remarked, although highwoods 

 yield on the whole the best returns where a 

 large capital is available for investment in timber 

 crops, yet copse or ' stored coppice ' is a system 

 also offering considerable attractions to owners 

 of woodlands which are of too small an area to 

 be worked as highwoods with a regular annual 

 fall. As in high timber crops, absolute regu- 

 larity of treatment cannot be effected, nor should 

 it be aimed at, because changes in the quality, 

 depth, freshness, and other physical properties 

 of the soil and situation must of course neces- 



