CHAPTER IV. 



Complementary Operations of the Okganisation Project 



FOR Copses. 



The various works which the Organisation Project may have 

 to regulate and prescribe are of very different kinds. They include 

 Avorks properly so called ; worlis necessary for protection, such as 

 fences, &c. ; for working, such as roads ; for surveillance, &c., &c. 

 They are, so to say, accidental in their nature, whereas cultural 

 works have, on the contrary, an essential character. These latter 

 are, according to the particular case concerned. Improvement Out- 

 ings, viz., Thinnings and Cleanings, the pruning off of branches and 

 removal ofeplootms, reboisements and draining. 



The object of Thinnings in simple copses is, firstly, to favour 

 the diametral growth of the poles of the underwood by clearing the 

 forest round them to a sufficient extent (but such an operation can 

 be useful only to shade-fleeing species, like the aspen, the oaks, and 

 others ^) ; and, secondly, to render available, before and indepen- 

 dently of the main exploitation, certain kinds of produce, such as 

 osier, stool shoots with dead crowns, and decaying shrubby growth. 

 Neither of these objects possess under ordinary circumstances any 

 great importance ; and, indeed, in a simple copse, the Rotation is 

 too short for there to be any great number of cases of well-marked 

 advantage in making a Thinning. 



1. The coppice crops composing the Reserved Fourth of the Commune of 

 Chargey-16s-Port (Haute Saoue), and which have been subjected to Thinnings 

 since 1832, were of the same age aa the present century, i. e., 50 years old in 

 1850. After that year these old coppice crops were exploited on three or four 

 several occasions, a very numerous reserve having been left on the first occa- 

 sion. Seedlings then made such a poor show, that the inhabitants of the Com- 

 mune formed the impression that the canton was ruined. To-day it is covered 

 with an exceedingly fine pole crop of beech, oak, and hornbeam. 



