80 SYLVICULTURE. 



coppice, along with the underwood the standard trees grown for 

 timber are also removed in a more or less fixed proportion, all 

 the trees of the oldest class (say of four or five rotations of the 

 coppice) being felled together with an equal number of the next 

 age-class, and the other younger age-classes cut in larger number, 

 the object being at each rotation to remove those that are not 

 well grown, and only to leave those that seem likely to continue 

 growing well. As solving is generably unsuitable in our damp 

 climate, owing to thick and rapid growth of weeds, the renewal 

 of highwoods takes place in Britain by planting, when clear- 

 felling is adopted, as is usually the case ; and here the planting 

 area is cleared and burned to destroy the rubbish, and then 

 replanted. Natural regeneration from self-sown seed is here 

 only usual in the case of Beech woods on the chalk hills of 

 southern England, and of Scots Pine woods in the Strathspey 

 district of Scotland ; but it might be advantageously carried out 

 to a much larger extent than at present in most of our woodlands 

 formed with deep-rooting kinds of trees (but not in Spruce 

 woods), as Ash, Sycamore, Larch, Oak, Silver and Douglas Firs, 

 Cypresses and Red Cedar, and most kinds of forest-trees come 

 up fairly thickly wherever the soil is in good condition and not 

 overrun with a rank growth of weeds provided always that 

 rabbits are kept down. 



1. Simple and Stored Coppice. Coppicing or cutting back is 

 the simplest way of reproduction ; and the more clay there is 

 in the soil, the greater the reproductive power usually is. By 

 cutting close to the ground a better flush is got of stool-shoots 

 from most kinds of broad-leaved trees, and of root-suckers from 

 Chestnut, English Elm, Lime, Eobinia, Aspen, White Alder, 

 and non-indigenous Willows and Poplars ; and the stools last 

 much longer than when high stumps are left. Coppice should 

 be cut with a heavy well-balanced bill for small poles, and an 

 axe for larger poles, as a saw leaves a rough surface holding 

 rain-water and inducing stool-rot. The cut should be clean, 



