Queries ajid Answers. 72 1 



, leaving ihe trees 18 ft. or 24 ft. apart ; varying this distance, less or more, in 

 favour of a better tree. The bark obtained at this cutting will more than 

 meet the expense of labour, and the wood will make superior charcoal. 

 From fifteen to twenty years hence, when the coppice is ready for a 

 second cutting, " A Reader" will be able to judge what number of trees 

 should be left as permanent standards of those reserved at the first cut- 

 ting. Most of these trees will by that time have arrived at a bearing 

 state ; and " A Reader " will do well to select as many as possible, 

 for the permanent standards, of Quercus i^obur, in preference to Q. sessi- 

 liflora ; the latter yielding the least valuable timber. Such of the trees 

 reserved at the first cutting, as now require to be removed, will turn to 

 good account in bark, and the wood at this age will be fit for various 

 useful purposes. Having said thus much, I trust it is hardly necessary to 

 remind " A Reader " of the impropriety of thinning out to the permanent 

 distance at once; for, if the plantation be as thick of trees as it ought to 

 be, to lay it open at once might be too great a transition, and consequently 

 hurtful to the remaining standards ; which is a sufficient evil of itself, in- 

 dependently of the depreciation of bark and timber which such a course 

 would effect. With regard to laying down branches of oaks, for filling up 

 blanks in the plantation, that may be done any time between November 

 and April. It is, however, more a curious, than useful, piece of cultiva- 

 tion ; and I would recommend employing stout young oak plants, at once, 

 to fill up blanks ; say 3 ft. to Sj ft. high. Such plants can be had for from 

 35s. to 4:0s. per 1000. In cutting coppice wood, perhaps the following 

 hints might be worth " A Reader's " consideration : — Oak should not be 

 cut until the leaves are nearly full-blown ; otherwise the bark cannot be 

 separated from the wood to any advantage. In Scotland, the cutting of 

 coppices seldom commences before the first week of June: before the 

 stools throw out the young suckers, four or six weeks more elapse ; and 

 before these shoots are ripened the winter sets in. The consequence is, 

 that all, or the greater part, of these shoots are partially destroyed ; and 

 thLs circumstance causes a numerous increase of laterals in the following 

 summer,' by which the stool is materially weakened, and the cutting of 

 the coppice wood retarded two or three years at least. To obviate this 

 defect of our climate, I once tried the following experiment, which, 

 although not upon a scale sufficiently extensive to warrant my recom- 

 mending it in preference to any other mode, yet, I must say, produced a 

 result which was so much to my satisfaction, that I do certainly consider 

 it worthy of a trial upon a larger scale : — On the 1st of November, 1825, 

 after having pitched on six young oak trees, 5 or 6 inches in diameter, I cut 

 off the communication between the root and top by the bark : this I ac- 

 complished by cutting out a piece of bark, about an inch broad, all round the 

 tree, 2 or 3 inches above the surface of the ground. My motive for this was, 

 to let the stool have the full advantage of the returning spring growth. 

 On the 4th of June following, when I came to cut these trees down, I 

 found them in full leaf, or nearly so, with suckers below the part where 

 the bark was cut out ; several of which were 3 in, and 4 in, in diameter, and 

 two of them nearly 6 in. in length. A little attention was necessary in 

 cutting down the heads from the stools, which I performed with a small 

 pruning saw, in the month of July. I thinned the suckers on the stools, 

 so as to leave only five on each. These ripened well, and made from 

 5 ft. to 7 ft. of wood in the course of the season : however, in the ensuing 

 winter they were mostly eaten down to within 6 in. of the stools by hares. 

 I cannot understand what tempts gentlemen to harbour these confounded 

 vermin about them. Cutting with the saw may be considered a more ex- 

 pensive operation than with the axe ; but if, as I believe, it has a tendency 

 to advance the growth of the coppice by two or three years, perhaps it is 

 Vol. IX. — No. 47. 3 a, 



