COPPICE WITH STANDARDS. 153 



well, and they must be compelled to give their closest 

 attention to the work. Besides there is a way to 

 make them take an interest in the work. The 

 operations performed by these men, and notably the 

 filling up of blanks, ought to be rewarded pecuniarily: 

 why not regard cleaning as coming under the latter 

 head, since it does away with the necessity of resort- 

 ing to that operation ? No one has an adequate 

 conception of the good that a guard may effect 

 within his beat. Supposing that only one day in 

 the week, while inspecting his beat, he visits the 

 young crops, bill-hook or pruning-knife in hand, and 

 that he sets free only 100 seedlings ; at the end of 

 the year, that represents 5,000 plants, that is to say 

 the equivalent of three to five acres of blanks suc- 

 cessfully re-stocked. But it is not only once a week 

 that the guard can do this work, he can do it nearly 

 every day ; and the total number of young oaks 

 which an intelligent, hardworking man can set free 

 and save, cannot be put down at less than 10,000 a 

 year. Supposing only one tenth of these oaks is 

 utilised for the reserve, what a mine of wealth have 

 we not there for the. future ! 



The yield of these cleanings should be based on 

 area because their date is absolutely known ; in 

 other words they should be made in the same order 

 as the coppice cuttings, and each operation should 

 embrace one or more entire coppice areas. The 

 same remarks hold good for the thinnings, of which 

 we will now treat. 



THINNINGS. The good work that cleanings have 

 begun for the seedlings, thinnings ought to continue, 



