118 ELEMENTS OF SYLVICULTURE. 



But though it must be acknowledged that the 

 shoots are most numerous and vigorous when fell- 

 ing operations have taken place in February and 

 March, especially if the spring is sunny, still we 

 must not exaggerate the disadvantages of cutting at 

 any other time of the year. 



The fact is that the general climate of France is 

 temperate ; it is only in exceptional situations that 

 severe cold need be feared, and even this only at 

 rather long, intervals. There is hence no serious 

 drawback in beginning felling operations in autumn> 

 as soon as the sap has become inert ; they may be 

 continued throughout the winter, except during 

 severe frosts, when, however, all out-door work is 

 impossible. 



Cutting while the sap is in circulation is always 

 to be deprecated, but it seems to us that its effects 

 have been inordinately exaggerated. It is true that 

 the shoots make their appearance only at the next 

 rising of the sap (i.e. about August), and in coppice 

 where the practice of surface firing* prevails, even 

 as late as the ensuing spring. But it is exceedingly 

 difficult, when the rotation consists of twenty or 

 twenty-five years, to appreciate the difference of 

 volume resulting from one year's growth more or 

 less. Nor is it proved by observation that coppices 

 grown for their bark, which are cut over while the 

 sap is in circulation, F produce less ample or shorter 

 lived clumps of shoots, except as the result of an 

 exceptionally hot summer and of long continued 

 drought. The worst effect of cutting while the sap 



* See infra, "p. 124. 



