116 THE DAILY LIFE OF OUR FARM. 



simply produce, intermixed with a copse's under- 

 growth. 



But the marker's dry. Well, to be practical, let me 

 record what the woodman taught me. A good oak 

 coppice is reckoned to pay about £18 in sixteen years, 

 not reckoning the trees that are left standing. The 

 plantation we are thinning is about twenty years of 

 age, has been thinned once, and will require thinning 

 in about ten years again. It is calculated to yield 

 about IJ tons of bark to the acre, besides the sticks, 

 which are worth a shilling each, one with another, and 

 will come in for valuable fencing, hop-poles, and the 

 like. The present price of bark is about £4 10s. the 

 ton, and the stripping costs from 27s. to 30s. the ton. 

 The peeled saplings must remain standing until the 

 winter. " If you was to cut them now, they would rip 

 in the sun, so as you couldn't cleave them nohow," 

 Then it requires an artist to decide upon the best 

 period for taking the bark into scale, and he must have 

 his wits about him there, I'm informed, so many are the 

 customary allowances, so crafty the tricks of the trade. 

 " I remember when I went in last year with your'n, sir. 

 There was the foreman ; him was a-bobbing about with 

 his toe under the scale. ' Stand off,' says I, ' and you 

 shall have your weight, never fear.' There be dead 

 robbery oftentimes, sir, in a bark-yard." 



Oak should be planted about four feet apart, and 

 thinned ultimately to forty trees the acre, in order to 

 srrow timber. Well, then I consult him as to a bit of 

 rough side land (arable ground), that it does not pay to 

 cultivate for ordinary crops, whether he would advise 

 my planting it with oaks when the time comes. " Oh 

 no, sir— larch ; them do pay so much sooner. Bill, you 



