HIGH WOODS, COPSES, ETC. 283 



the underwood as a rule suffers from being patchy. 

 There are usually blanks here and there, and 

 even throughout the rest of the area the crop is 

 not as thick as it might be ; while it not in- 

 frequently happens that the stock actually on 

 the ground is not that which might be grown 

 with most profit on the given soil and situa- 

 tion. 



These defects of the overwood can only be 

 remedied gradually during successive falls, so as 

 to bring the copse into a normally stocked con- 

 dition. Something may often, however, be done 

 by judicious pruning to correct the excessive 

 branch development, by the careful and clean 

 removal of lower branches not exceeding about 

 three inches in diameter. The lower side being 

 cut into first of all, to prevent tearing of the 

 bark down the stem, the branches should be 

 sawn off close to the stem, trimmed smooth, and 

 well tarred to prevent wound-rot, and the tarring 

 should be repeated till the wounds heal and be- 

 come completely overgrown. But this operation 

 must be conducted cautiously in place of being 

 carried on in a wholesale manner, else the stems 

 are apt to send out a flush of adventitious shoots 



