APPLICATION OF SIMPLE COPPICE. 129 



firing is really beneficial to forest growth. The 

 advantage, about which there is least doubt, re- 

 sults from the working up of the soil. But though 

 vegetation is favoured during the first few years by 

 the action of the ashes, it is probable that it would 

 gain at least as much by the slow but gradual decay 

 of the dead leaves. Besides this, the practice of 

 firing necessitates the continuance of simple coppice, 

 though it appears evident that coppice with stan- 

 dards, rightly carried out, would compensate, and 

 even more than compensate, for the loss which 

 would result from the suppression of the rye crop. 

 The fact is that in the system of coppice with 

 standards the rotation of the underwood would 

 admit of being lengthened, the yield would hence 

 be smaller in firewood but larger in pit-props, and 

 the reserve would furnish useful timber for build- 

 ing and other purposes, and it is well known that 

 the price of such timber is daily on the increase. 



BEECH : " FUKETAGE." We have seen that the 

 beech is perhaps of all trees, the one least adapted 

 for simple coppice. Still there are about 100,000 

 acres of simple beech coppice, belonging for the 

 most part to private proprietors. These coppices 

 are situated chiefly in that part of France formerly 

 known as Morvan, on the Swiss side of the Jura, 

 and at the foot of the Pyrenees. There they are 

 frequently subjected to a peculiar treatment called 

 "furetage" (In some countries coppices of oak, 

 or of several kinds of trees growing together, are 

 similarly worked on this plan.) 



"Furetage" consists in cutting the strongest 

 K 



