OAK COPPICE-WOOD. 189 



are fit for peeling, there is a decided loss. I have 

 compared two plantations which were managed 

 upon these two different systems, and found the one 

 managed upon that which I have recommended, at 

 the end of twenty years, worth nearly a half more 

 than the one managed upon the opposite system. 



AVhen the young trees have received their second 

 course of thinning, as has been pointed out, they 

 should at the same time receive a judicious pruning, 

 and that in the same manner as has already been 

 recommended for the pruning of young oak trees : 

 the larch firs, as they grow up, should be thinned 

 away by degrees, in order to give room to the 

 oaks as they advance, whether that may be to re- 

 lieve the old stools or the young trees; and in every 

 respect this thinning of the firs should bo done as 

 has already been recommended for the management 

 of oak plantations generally. 



Seeing that the value of oak bark has fallen so 

 much during the last twenty years, I do not con- 

 sider the growing of oak coppice so profitable a 

 crop as it has been. About twenty-five years ago, 

 the price of oak bark was £16 per ton, while 

 this year (1847) the highest price that has been 

 given in Edinbm^gh is £5, 10s. — making its value 

 at the present time only about one-third of what 

 it was twenty-five years ago, and consequently 

 reducing the value of oak coppice plantations in 

 the same ratio ; and, upon this consideration, I 



