172 ELEMENTS OF SYLVICULTURE. 



impossible to prove this rigorously, as it would be 

 necessary to subject the same forest successively to 

 these two separate systems. But observations tend 

 to establish the truth of this proposition, which is 

 besides an accepted fact among all foresters without 

 exception. 



Moreover, the produce of high forest has a wider 

 range of usefulness. The quantity of large timber 

 is more considerable, and volume for volume it 

 contains a smaller proportion of unsound wood. 

 However, the question at issue concerns only the 

 range of usefulness, since coppice standards, as 

 compared with high forest trees, yield timber which 

 is denser, stronger, and composed of better nourished 

 tissue on account of the unhampered development of 

 their crowns. For this very reason their wood is to 

 be preferred in important constructions. On the 

 other hand, timber grown under close leaf-canopy is 

 in great demand for manufactures. It should be 

 noted too that high forests which have been thinned 

 yield timber of medium density useful for almost all 

 purposes, and lastly it must be remembered that the 

 consumption of manufacturing timber is far more 

 considerable than that of building timber. Thus 

 the superiority of high forest over coppice is com- 

 pletely established. 



So far as fuel is concerned, coppice wood is better 

 than the old trees of a high forest. But on the 

 other hand the underwood of a forest under coppice 

 is very nearly counter-balanced by the produce 

 obtained from the thinnings made in a high forest 

 towards the middle of the rotation. Moreover, we 



