CHAPTER I. 



ORGANISATION OF COilPOUND COPSES 

 UNDER CONVERSION, 



SECTION I. 

 Preuminabt Operations. 



Taking the conversion of a forest as a whole, its object is to 

 form a Working Circle of High Forest containing a complete series 

 of the diflferent age-classes. Hence the various portions of the forest 

 cannot be converted simultaneously, but gradually one after another, 

 the operation being spread over a space of time equal to the Rota- 

 tion, on which the forest would be worked if it were already con- 

 stituted as a high forest. The Am^nagiste should, therefore, take 

 in hand first of all those portions, which are the best adapted for 

 the purpose, and gradually prepare the rest for conversion while at 

 the same time improving them. 



But if it is necessary to prepare a copse, whether simple or 

 compound, for conversion by letting it grow on, that is no reason 

 for doing this simultaneously all over the forest from one end of 

 it to the other. This preparation would be premature except du- 

 ring the period immediately preceding that in which the actual 

 conversion is to follow. We may, therefore, have to make one or 

 more coppice exploitations in those portions of the forest, the con- 

 version of which is yet distant ; nay, as a general rule, no other 

 procedure is practicable. A portion of the copse is by this meaos 

 renewed before its actual conversion, and the owiier of the forest 

 realises thereby what he cannot well do without, viz., his exploit- 

 able wood and timber. 



