212 OUB COPSES AS THET ARE. 



■with as natural forests, those we have being nearly all artifiGiaHy 

 raised. The sessile-flowered oak, like the holm oak and the Toza, 

 forms of itself fcrest masses which thrive well under the Coppieer 

 Eegime. Such forests, composed of a single species, are, to speak 

 truly, the exception, and the ndajority of oar copses contain, asso- 

 ciated in varying proportions, nearly all the broad-leaved apeeies 

 indigenous to the locality. 



On lowlying, wet, level ground, in deep and rich alluvial soil, 

 the alder often constitutes the larger portion of the copses there, ia 

 company with scattered ash, hornbeam, elms and peduneled oaks. 

 These copses are the best stocked and the most productive that we 

 have, and when standards are preserved in them, it is tliere that 

 we find the largest specimens of the peduneled oak, such as furnish 

 US' with the strong and durable timber in such great request for 

 civil and naval constructions. The same species are met with ia 

 the copses of our plains, where the soil, although less wet, is suffici- 

 ently deep and moist. There also they form well stocked crops, 

 iB svhieh the proportion of alder decreases-, while that of the aspen 

 and hornbeam increases. In our hilly and mountainous districts, 

 and even in those plains, of which the soil is dry, shallow, and occa- 

 sionally stony, the sessile-flowered oak is- more abundant than its 

 peduneled congener. It forms frequently enough the greater por- 

 tion of the crops containing it, its companions being the hornbeam 

 and beech, and in silicious soils also the Vjirch. In Southern; 

 France the holm oak is found on dry and rocky soils. Associated 

 as a rule with the sessile-flowered oak and with various species of 

 shrubs, it constitutes simple copses covering immense areas. The 

 Toza also forms fairly gowl simple copses in the barren soils of the 

 Southwest. 



Such are, if a few young standards be excepted, our principal 

 types of forest in which the method of Simple Coppice has now 

 for a long time prevailed. It is needless to observe that these types 

 present each a great many shades of variety in one and the same 

 forest. As regards the frequent differences in the outturn of 

 material or receipts yielded by simple copses, although growing 

 under identical conditions, they can be referred to only two causes : 

 viz., the condition of the standing stock, and the age fixed for ex- 

 ploitation. 



