112 ELEMENTS OF SYLVICULTURE. 



Forest Department, interdicts it so long as a special 

 statute in the shape of a working-plan does not 

 expressly direct otherwise. The importance of 

 simple coppice has declined to a remarkable extent 

 within the last thirty years, especially since foun- 

 dries have used coal for smelting purposes. Generally 

 speaking, the price of fire-wood, far from following 

 the rise in price of timber, has at the most remained 

 stationary, and in many cases has even fallen. 

 Private proprietors themselves obviously find it to 

 their interest to grow coppice with standards, 

 wherever the materials for a reserve of valuable 

 trees exist, and it is only considerations of the kind 

 of tree that is grown, of the soil, or of the growth 

 of special kinds of produce that can justify the 

 adoption of simple coppice. 



For instance, the holm oak does not in France 

 attain the dimensions of timber ; on the other hand, 

 its young bark is excessively rich in tannin, and is 

 of the very highest quality for the manufacture of 

 leather. The sweet chestnut is not indigenous in 

 our country ; at an age when it might yield large 

 timber, its heart wood is nearly always unsound. 

 Grown in simple coppice with short rotations it is 

 in great demand for cooperage and for making props 

 in vine-growing districts. Here any reserves that 

 may be left would be regarded as fruit trees. 

 Similarly in agricultural districts and in the neigh- 

 bourhood of mines, it is also possible that it would 

 pay to grow the two oaks (the peduncled and sessile- 

 flowered varieties) as simple coppice, whether it be 

 for training poles, or for pit-props, or for their bark. 



