33G REGENERATION P,Y COPPICE. 



growth of weeds, and, at any rate, protect the soil from rapid di t2- 

 rioration and diminish any tendency to waterlogging during the 

 heavy rains. 



10. The presence of stores. 



Against all the injurious influences of weather and soil referred 

 to above the preservation of stores affords considerable protection. 

 But such protection can never be as effective as lateral protection 

 on narrow lines, nor must we forget the fact that stores often 

 injure the now regrowth in their immediate vicinity by their cover 

 and by their much stronger and larger root-apparatus. Never- 

 theless the presence of a few scattered stores, from J to 20 and 

 even 30 to the acre, according to the height and spread of their 

 crowns and the unfavourable character of prevailing conditions, 

 will allow of the doubling and even trebling of the width of the 

 coupe without exceeding the limits of safety. It is necessary to 

 add here, in respect of the influence of stores on the undergrowth, 

 that in our climate of extremes, contrary to what happens in the 

 temperate countries of Europe, the sum total of good more olteii 

 outweighs that of evil. 



Stores may be preserved for 1, 2, 3 and even more rotations of 

 the coppice, and then they may be termed respectively stores or 

 standards of the first, second, third... class. When first isolated, 

 their spre id of crown and roots is never considerable enough to 

 inflict any appreciable damage on the coppice ; they begin to be- 

 come dam>erous only after the middle of the second rotation of their 



^5 J 



life. To minimise the dangerous influence cf stores, the majority 

 of them may be selected along the edges of the coupes, especially 

 on the windward side, just enough being left in the midst of the 

 coppice to afford the necessary protection, and, if required, also to 

 sow the ground. 



To save damage, stores are exploited simultaneously with the 

 rest of the stock ; but if the rotation is long, dead, dying or 

 deteriorating trees should be utilised at once, if they are not to be 

 kept until they become quite worthless. 



The role that stores play in replenishing the coppice by means 

 of the seed they shed, belongs to the subject of Section VI below. 



SECTIOX II. 

 Regeneration by root-suckers. 



This subject may be considered under the same main heads as 

 the preceding one. 



