SILVICULTURAL SYSTEMS 33 



B. COPPICE WITH STANDARDS. 



There already exists a form of forest which may be considered 

 as a transition stage between coppice and high forest and which 

 when fashioned by the science of the forester is called a coppice 

 with standards forest. This is a forest composed largely of 

 sprouts, but with an admixture of larger trees grown from seed. 

 In the Rhine Valley of Baden this system has, perhaps, reached 

 its highest perfection. Here the forest is laid off in regular sub- 

 divisions, one of which is cut each year of the rotation of the 

 coppice, which is usually twenty years. In most cases an area 

 is cut every twenty years and allowed to resprout. But instead 

 of cutting quite clear a few selected trees or standards are left 

 to grow on for several more rotations. The standards are trees 

 from the seed and not sprouts. These standards are obtained 

 either by planting or by natural seeding, a little of which is apt 

 to take place even in simple coppice stands. At the end of the 

 next twenty-year period the poorer trees are cut along with the 

 stand of coppice, but the best, perhaps thirty to the acre, are 

 left to grow for another coppice rotation. Again, part are 

 removed and a few allowed to grow on to sixty, eighty, or one 

 hundred years, thus producing timber of various dimensions at 

 each cutting. When the system is once under way a stand of 

 coppice together with standards of several different ages and 

 sizes will be found on the same acre. 



The reason that trees grown from seed are selected for standards 

 is that such trees live to a greater age and attain larger propor- 

 tions than those grown from sprouts. When a cutting among 

 the standards is made the spaces formerly occupied by the old 

 standards are filled with seedlings by planting. Trees are 

 selected as standards which are of valuable species and will have 

 a high value when mature. Since these standards are crowded 

 only during the first part of their lives, they form short, thick- 

 set bodies and usually produce one or two large logs of fast 

 growth. 



