406 THE THREE GREAT SYSTEMS OF REGENERATION COMPARED. 



Artificial Regeneration. 



11. The plants being 

 originally so spaced as not 

 to interfere with each other, 

 and coming up, as they do, 

 in more or less prepared 

 soil, enjoy an unchecked 

 development from the very 

 commencement. This is 

 true even of a crop in- 

 troduced under cover, for 

 the whole area being sown 

 or planted up ill a single 

 operation, the cover is re- 

 moved before it can do any 

 harm, even to individual 

 plants. The annual rate 

 of growth is thus pretty 

 steady and is very high. 

 But, on the other hand, 

 the wider spacing of the 

 stems and their generally 

 equal height and vigour, 

 prevent the trees from 

 being drawn up as high as 

 they would be, if the stock 

 were denser and there 

 were neighbours to con- 

 stantly force them up. 

 But as a compensating 

 circumstance, the trees 

 attain a large girth early, 

 and therefore become ex- 

 ploitable long before self- 

 sown trees can. Thus the 

 yield of an artificially- 

 raised crop is generally 

 larger than that of a self- 

 BOWU one. 



Natural Regeneration by 

 Seed. 



In the case of every crop 

 there is very considerable 

 loss of production, owing 

 to the protracted regenera- 

 tion, and the prolongation, 

 by the cover overhead, of 

 the seedlings and early sap- 

 ling stages. Moreover pa- 

 rent or nurse trees have not 

 ^infrequently to be kept in 

 the interests of the new 

 crop, long after they have 

 ceased to make any useful 

 growth. But on the other 

 hand, if the seedlings are 

 kept back by the parent 

 crop, the trees composing 

 this latter, being early 

 forced by the preparatory 

 and other regeneration fel- 

 lings, expand rapidly, 

 when every cubic foot of 

 added timber means a 

 proportionately large addi- 

 tion to the value of the 

 tree, and may thus more 

 than compensate for the 

 obstructed development of 

 the tiny seedlings. But 

 this will happen only under 

 exceptionally favourable 

 conditions of climate and 

 soil, and, as a rule, the 

 annual yield of a self-sown 

 crop will be less than that 

 of an artificially raised one, 

 especially one that has been 

 planted. 



Regeneration ly Coppice. 



Coppice at first grows 

 very much faster than seed- 

 lings or any kind of trans- 

 plants, both per se, and on 

 account of the comparative- 

 ly wide intervals between 

 the parent stools &c. ; and 

 it is cut before the growth 

 becomes slow. Hence, con- 

 sidering only the amount 

 of production, irrespective 

 of the class of wood or 

 timber obtained, coppice 

 yields the largest outturn 

 per acre per annum, 



12. Owing to the rapid See under artificial re- 

 growth explained under generation. 

 (11), artificially-raised crops 

 begin to give marketable 

 produce earlier than self- 

 sown ones, but not so early 

 aa coppice. 



Yields marketable pro- 

 duce very much earlier 

 than even artificially- 

 raised crops. 



13. If the exploitation 

 of an artificially-regenerated 

 forest is economical, its 

 constitution is very much 

 more expensive than that 

 of any other. 



Much less expensive than 

 artificial regeneration, even 

 where the soil is specially 

 prepared to receive seed. 



The production of cop- 

 pice rarely requires any 

 preparation of the soil and 

 few or no repairs. Hence, 

 in spite of the low cutting 

 and shaping of stools, re- 

 generation hardly costs 

 more than the mere felling 

 of the tree. If we bear ia 

 mind the almost mathe- 

 matical regularity of the 

 coupes, the convenience of 

 export, and the concentre- 



