OUR COPSES AS THET ARK 213 



If the composition or condition of a copse is defective either 

 because the more valuable species are wanting or are present in in- 

 sufficient numbers, or because the crops are not as complete as they 

 might be, these shortcomings may he remedied by planting what is 

 necessary as soon as each successive coupe is exploited and cleared'. 

 This cultural operation need never fail, if the requisite eare> monej 

 and time are expended on it ; but it does not suffice of itself to- 

 make the copse yield the best descriptions of produce or the largest 

 income of which it is capable. In copses, as in high forests, it i& 

 also necessary that the stock be exploited at the right age. 



A forest worked as a simple copse yields scarcely anything be- 

 sides firewood or charcoal, vine praps, hoops for casks, poles, and 

 bark. But even these descriptions of produce it will furnish ia 

 very difTerent quantities accordirrg to the age at which it is felled. 

 The clumps of young shoots on newly cut stools at fii'st stand apart 

 from each other, leaving the greater portion of the soil exposed. 

 As long as this continues, the production of ligneous matter is small 

 in spite of the vigorous growth of the young shoots. As they grow 

 on, they close their crowns over the ground and thus reform th& 

 leaf-canopy. From this time onwards the annual sum of produc- 

 tion is considerable until it reaches its maximum. It is only later 

 on, when tha copse, then old, begins to thin itself under the action 

 of natural forces and allows the direct rays of the suq to reach the- 

 ground here and there that the annual production diminishes lik& 

 the faculty itself of the copse to reproduce itself from the stool. 

 Such are the facts as we find them, and the conclusion to be drawn 

 from them is that the standing stock in simple copses increases in 

 a much higher ratio than its own age. ^• 



People do not easily conceive what an enormous difference 

 five years added to the necessarily short Rotation makes in a copse. 

 Actual experience alone can carry with it complete conviction. A 

 copse at 30 years is, so to say, an entirely different forest from the 



1. Oak copses are not seldom met with, ■which at the age of 10 years 

 contain 280 cubic feet per acre, being the equivalent of 28 cubic feet per acre 

 per annum ; at the age of 20 years 84C> cubic feet, being an increase since tha 

 age of 10 years at the rate of 56 cubic feet per acre per annum ; and at the aga 

 of 30 years 1400 cubic feet, exclusive of 280 cubic feet removed in the interval 

 in thiuning operations. Thus, during the third interval of 10 years, from the 

 age of 20 to 30 years, the annual sum of growth per acre is still 56 cubic feet, 

 and the actual production 84 cubic feet. 



