246 COMPLEMENTARY WORK IN THE ORGANISATION OF COPSES. 



ever without well-proved necessity. When a Thinning has been pro- 

 perly made, the simple layman walking through the forest would 

 never imagine that the wood-cutter has just passed through with 

 bis axe. 



Thus the operation of Thinning, properly so called, is really 

 made, so to say, only in places. Taking the forest as a whole, the 

 underwood may seem not to have been touched at all and to be as 

 full as before, only obviously harmful or overdense growth having 

 been removed. Such Thinnings always constitute a delicate oper- 

 ation j to execute them successfully the one idea to bear in mind 

 before every thing else should be that the soil can never be too well 

 covered. 



Indeed Thinnings made in copses are often termed Cleanings, 

 but this misnomer creates a mistaken idea and gives rise to a real 

 danger, since the operation of Thinning affects only the leaf-canopy, 

 and has nothing to do with the general clearing of the soil below 

 In thinning copses, attention is scarcely ever paid to opening out 

 the leaf-canopy round the crowns of second-class and older stan- 

 dards hard pressed on every side by the surrounding coppice poles ; 

 and yet these trees are thereby exposed to the loss of some of their 

 principal limbs, unsoundness of the trunk being the result. In a 

 great many eases, it is chiefly to trees thus menaced that Thinnings 

 are useful, to the individuals of the reserve, therefore, rather than to 

 those of the underwood — it being always clearly understood that the 

 operation should touch nothing below the tree or pole to be freed , 

 but be strictly confined to the portion of the forest on a level with 

 its crown. 



A Thinning cannot be made with real success or with complete 

 certainty as to results except in copses already of a certain age and 

 situated in good soil. In every case in which Thinnings are practi- 

 cable, they should be prescribed in the Working Scheme, atid theil* 

 nature and extent should be defined in the General Statistical 

 Report, Instances have frequently occurred, in which the omission 

 of such details has led to deplorable mistakes on the part of the Execu-' 

 tlve Staff. In the last place, it is only about the eighth or tenth year 

 before the coppice exploitation that a Thinning can be made with 

 the most useful results ; and we may gay in a genevEtl manner that 



