226 THE BOTATION IN COPSES WITH STANDARDS. 



It is certain that with a long Rotation, of 36 or 40 years for 

 instance, a Thinning would be required at about the age of 30 years, 

 thereby rendering it possible to obtain in any kind of soil whatsoever 

 the best results that can be expected from the Compound Coppice 

 Method of Treatment. ^ 



As regards the Reserve, we know that it consists of standards 

 of the 1st., 2nd,, and higher classes. Now it is clear that each time 

 a coupe reaches its turn for exploitation, it contains no standards of 

 a lower class than the second ; hence it is always those of the second 

 and higher classes which furnish the trees to be felled. Such trees 

 would be, firstly, those that are decaying, misshapen or weakly ; 

 secondly, those among the healthy and vigorous trees which, from 

 being badly situated, interfere with the growth of other standards 

 possessing a higher value and a higher future promise ; and, thirdly 

 and lastly, all mature and exploitable trees. 



Thus the age at which the standards are felled is always some 

 multiple of the Rotation of the underwood. But it is not possibla 

 to express it in figures. The reason is evident ; for, to take an 

 example, in copses belonging to the State and to Communes, the 

 oak is not exploitable until it yields the most useful produce of which 

 it is capable, and, since the utility and the money value of an oak 

 tree increases very rapidly in proportion to its size, it follows that 

 oak standards become really exploitable only one by one as each 

 reaches maturity. Hence as long as an oak is sound, as long as it 

 has no trace of decomposition either apparent or concealed, as long 

 as the aspect of the bark or the crown, the abundance and vigour of 



1. A century or more ago the majority of the copses belonging to the Com- 

 munes and to the State in the east of France were worked on a Eotation of 

 30, 35 or 40 years. When this last figure was adopted, the copses so worked 

 were designated hauts taUlis (high copses). But since the middle of the last cen- 

 tury, a large number of communal forests were divided into systematically 

 ordered coupes by officers of the Survey Branch of the Forest Department work- 

 ing more or less at haphazard and never departing from the number 25. This 

 was the be-all and end-all of the organisation of those forests. Thencefor- 

 ward the felling of large timber went on rapidly increasing and the trees were 

 cut for the most part at the age of 75 years, instead of being preserved un- 

 til they were 150 years old. Thus was brought about the disappearance of the 

 oak from many and many a coupe, and from our finest forests. 



