SILVICULTURAL SYSTEMS. 21 



proper thinning (where thinning can be made to pay), 

 and enough young seedlings among the sprouts to 

 replace exhausted stumps with vigorous young ones. 

 Stumps from which the sprouts have been cut many 

 times tinally grow weak and lose their power of 

 sprouting. 



In cutting sprouts it is important not to loosen the 

 bark on the stumps, for that impairs their sprouting 

 power, and to make the cut as near the ground as pos- 

 sible. Stumps cut level with the surface sprout best 

 of all. In Simple Coppice, well handled, the repro- 

 duction takes place of itself without the need of fur- 

 ther attention from the forester. 



Man}' thousands of acres of American woodland, 

 especially in New England, New York, Pennsylvania, 

 and New Jersey, and in other places where chestnut is 

 the principal tree, are treated under a rough system 

 of Simple Coppice. 



STORED COPPICE. 



Among the trees which will produce only fuel, fence 

 posts, or railroad ties there often stand in a woodlot 

 others which would yield much larger returns if they 

 were allowed to reach a greater age and size than the 

 trees about them. If there were some w r hite oaks scat- 

 tered through the chestnut coppice just described, it 

 might be well to let them grow large enough for the 

 production of high-priced material like quartered oak 

 lumber. In that case it would be necessary at the time 

 of cutting the sprouts to select and leave standing a 

 certain number of white oaks on every acre. As many 

 of them as survived the increased exposure to wind and 



