142 ELEMENTS OF SYLVICULTUEE . 



Besides in coppice forests under the management 

 of the Forest Department, that principle could not 

 be applied without infringing the provisions laid 

 down in Article 70, of which it now remains to 

 examine the great advantages and the few disadvan- 

 tages. 



Article 70 contains two paragraphs, of which 

 the first relates to the number of first class stand- 

 ards to be reserved per hectare. This is not so 

 important as the other paragraph, which runs 

 thus : " Standards of the second, third, and fourth 

 classes shall not be felled unless they are decaying or 

 are not in a condition to gain by being allowed to 

 stand till the beginning of the next rotation." Thus, 

 as long as they are still sound, or are not yet really 

 mature, existing standards, to whatever species they 

 belong, must be preserved ; and as this rule can 

 concern only long-lived species, the reserve must 

 necessarily be very numerous and ultimately occupy 

 the greater portion of the ground, with this condition, 

 however, that their crowns remain free. The main 

 object in growing coppice with standards is, in point 

 of fact, to produce dense tough wood, especially oak, 

 which full canopied high forest will never yield. 



Thus it is easily comprehended that whenever the 

 reserve is composed of oak, its number will be no 

 real danger to the underwood, especially if the 

 latter, while* containing a little oak, consists princi- 

 pally of beech and hornbeam. The consequence may 

 be that the coppice will be composed of scattered 

 and weak stools, but then, under these numerous 

 standards forming apparently a canopy of high 



