EXPLOITABILITY OP COPPICE STANDABDa. 227 



the foliage or branches show that it is healthy, or, to use the words 

 of the Royal Edict, that its condition is such that it can prosper 

 for another Rotation, it must not be abandoned to the woodcutter, 

 whatever its age or size might be. Such is the rule, simple enough, 

 to observe with regard to the exploitability of oaks reserved over 

 copse, if we wish to obtain from them the maximum utilitj' or money 

 value of which they are capable. 



The same rule holds good with regard to the other species, 

 standards of which it is expedient to preserve for the production of 

 timber, such as the ash and the common elm for instance. With 

 respect to such species as the hornbeam and even the beech, which 

 are included in the reserve simply to yield firewood and to furnish 

 a sufficient stock of seedlings for the maintenance of the underwood, 

 they need not be spared after they have reached the category of 

 2nd. or 3rd. class standards. Nevertheless there are some forests in 

 which , the beech being the predominant tree, there is advantage 

 in preserving standards of that species up to a more advanced age. 

 But this circumstance is really peculiar and limited to communal 

 forests, for it is evident that State forests, situated on a soil 

 specially adapted for the cultivation of the beech, ought without 

 any hesitation to be converted into high forest, and that for that 

 reason the selection of the standards therein ought to be regulated 

 by the exigencies of the conversion. 



In copses belonging to private proprietors the standards cannot 

 be preserved except for a limited period. As soon as a certain age 

 has been reached, the rate of increase in the money-value of the 

 standing trees begins to fall below the percentage of interest de- 

 manded by investors in forest property in the locality ; this then 

 is the age at which the standards ought to be felled. But it is 

 clear that this age must vary for difierent trees according to the 

 less or greater vigour of their growth and the additional value 

 which each would acquire during the course of another Rotation, 



If, as we have said, the treatment of forests of broad-leaved 

 species by the Compound Coppice method is eminently suited for 

 the private proprietor and satisfies well the interests of the Com- 

 mune, this is so only on the condition that the selection of the 

 standards is carried out methodically and in the proper spirit, 



