COPPICE WITH STAND AEDS. 165 



new wood and bark), must cause large wounds. 

 Thus it happens that wounds covered over in the 

 most complete manner, always give rise, at the end 

 of fifteen or twenty years, to decayed wood, and 

 this chiefly towards the foot of the tree ; for it is 

 there that water accumulates after filtering through 

 between the wounded surface and the new layers of 

 wood. 



This danger is very considerably diminished in the 

 case of first class standards, because their branches 

 are always small, and the wound caused by their 

 being lopped off heals up in one or two years. 

 Besides this, little is to be feared from such a 

 wound, as it is quite close to the centre, a portion of 

 the tree that is always cut out in important work. 

 Here there is everything to gain by lengthening the 

 bole. At the same time it must not be forgotten 

 that these reserves have never too much foliage. 

 Thus only those branches must be lopped off which 

 are lowest in the crown and which have already 

 begun to wither and would fall off naturally, if the 

 leaf canopy were allowed to continue a few years 

 longer. This is tantamount to saying that the 

 length of bole can barely be increased by six feet ; 

 but that is something. 



So far as the oak is concerned, its spare foliage can 

 never cause much damage. More than this, an oak 

 standard is worth more than the underwood it 

 overtops. There is therefore no reason for depriving 

 it of live branches in order to diminish its breadth of 

 cover. Such a proceeding is always a mistake, since 

 the sum of foliage cannot be reduced without 



