OtrR COPSES AS THEY AEE. 217 



■offceQ than these latter rendered unsound through accidents and by 

 ■defects which affect principally oak-timber. These disadvantages 

 of the coppice systeai are undeniable, but it does not rest with us 

 whether we are to rear high forests everywhere and give up a 

 method of treatment that is actually practised throughout a very 

 "Considerable portion of the forests of this country. Moreover we 

 consider that this method of coppice treatment is, as a rule, the 

 ■one best adapted to the interests of the private proprietor. We 

 believe that in a great many cases it is able to satisfy to a sufficient 

 ■extent the requirements and the special interests of the Communes. 

 Besides, it is incontestable that, when wellapplied, it OjBfers the 

 •means of assfuring a supply, if not of the largest quantity of the 

 most useful produce, at least of a considerable quantity of very 

 useful produce and of claser-graiaed timber than that furnished by 

 liigh forests. 



It is not, therefore, unnecessary or unimportant to understand 

 thoroughly the advantages as well as the disadvantages attaching 

 to the Compound Coppice Method of Treatment. The actual treat- 

 ment, i. e., the mode of applying it, always affords an opportunity 

 of attenuating the latter and turning the former to the best account. 

 And, ind'ced, the organisation itself of such forests furnishes that 

 opportunity. In forests worked as Compound Coppice, regeneration 

 is immediate and the treatment simple and easy, characteristics in 

 which that method of treatment shares to almost the full extent of 

 Simple Coppice. But the production and development of shoots from 

 the stools are hindered by the cover of the standards, and the 

 work of treatment becomes complicated by the always difficult task 

 of creating a Reserve composed of the more valuable species. 

 Copses with standards furnish timber of large size, almost 

 exactly as real high forests do ; but the quantity of such timber 

 is small. The Compound Coppice method of working is suited 

 to the rearing of isolated trees ; it allows their crowns to develop in 

 perfect freedom, whereby their boles increase rapidly in diameter 

 and close grained wood is formed. But in consequence of the 

 ever recurring periodical clean felling, the roots of the trees find 

 themselves placed in a soil that is alternately covered and uncover- 

 ed, their boles remain short or become clothed with epicorms, some 

 of the branches in their crowns die or are broken off, and generally 

 they become liable to sufler from numerous defects and dangerous 

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