200 yoBBBTS WOEKED A 'HVit UT AtBEl. 



pediiacled oak requires richer, deeper, aad moisfcer soil thaajthe other 

 species ; it is the oak of low and wet situations, where it produces 

 tough close-grained wood and attains the largest dimensions, but, 

 like its congener, only on the condition that it is associated with 

 other species. The hornbeam is its most useful companion and 

 auxiliary.! 



The majority of the class of high forests just described offer' 

 more or less numerous instances of irregularity. Here and there 

 we still find in them superannuated trees of oak or other species, 

 crops holding out no promise whatsoever or containing but a small 

 proportion of the principal species, portions that have undergone de- 

 terioration or have been completely ruined, &c. Again, even the con- 

 secutive order of the cuttings which essentially constituted the method, 

 has seldom been observed ; exploitable trees have been taken out 

 wherever they were found, and especially from such places as offered 

 peculiar facilities for export and sale. The result of all this has been 

 the frequent and entire absence of any consecutive order in the ex- 

 ploitations and an utter confusion of age-classes. Then again, the 

 area of the annual coupes varied from year to year, according as 

 more or less produce was required in particular years, or in conse- 

 quence of marked changes made in the length of the Kotation. The 

 inevitable result was a defective gradation of the various age-classes. 

 Moreover, circumstances of a special nature aggravated the evils 

 already enumerated ; thus, for instance, in a great many forests, to- 

 wards the end of the last century, an unlimited number of trees in 

 crops aged from 20 to 30 years were systematically cut back, with 

 the result that whole age-classes were thereby completely wiped out. 

 Hepeated again and again, these irregular fellings have given rise to 

 veritable copses, both simple and compound, in certain parts of the 

 forests we are describing. Elsewhere artificial restocking has pro- 

 duced whole crops of brief longevity of an entirely special type. 

 Lastly, offences and injury of all kinds, such as the cutting down or 

 topping off of trees, the lopping off of branches, the repeated removal 

 of the layer of dead leaves on the ground, grazing, the browsincr of 

 cattle, the depredations of game, &c., all these causes have, singly 



(1) In a pole crop from 40 to 50 years old and containing from 2000 to 2500 

 stems, one or two of oak to every nine or eight of beech and hornbeam would ba 

 a sufficient proportion to have, 



