COMPOUND COPSES UNDER CONVEESION, 281 



Fourth and Fifth ... ) Compound Coppice Fellings over one- 

 Blocks I thirtieth of the aggregate area annually. 



And so on for the remaining Periods. 



The result of the treatment here sketched out would, of course, 

 be the successive replacement of the copse by seed-grown crops of 

 graduated ages forming together a regular high forest. 



Second Case. 



In the preceding case we supposed that the First Block could 

 be at once regenerated by means of self-sown seedlings obtained 

 from the large number of standards composing the existing stock. 

 A ease of this kind rarely presents itself, and in the greater num- 

 ber of instances it is necessary to fall back on the poles of the 

 underwood, in order to supplement the standards in forming the 

 closeness of leaf-canopy required by a Primary Felling and effect- 

 ing the regeneration of the First Block by seed. But oak and beech 

 poles, even those that have grown up from the stool, seldom produce 

 fertile and abundant seed before the age of 50 or 60 years. More- 

 over, the self-sown seedlings of these species die out when the cover 

 of the trees that are to shelter them is not sufficiently high above 

 the ground. Lastly, the poles of the underwood that must neces- 

 sarily be cut back in a coppice crop aged only about 30 years when 

 a Primary Felling is made, cannot but shoot up again abundantly 

 from the stool and thus produce clumps of shoots offering an ob- 

 stacle to the appearance and maintenance of seedlings. 



For all the reasons just given, it is necessary, in the case now 

 under discussion, to put off high forest regeneration operations until 

 the underwood has become old enough to be really fertile, to be no 

 longer able to shoot up anew, except in an imperfect manner,from the 

 stool, and to have attained a greater length of bole. While wait- 

 ing until this happens, the opportunity should be seized of preparing, 

 by a proper course of treatment, the crops that are first on the 

 roster for conversion ; and in order to simplify the work of organisa- 

 tion, this period of waiting, which we will term the Peeparatokt 

 Period, may be made equal to one of the regular Periods of the 

 Normal Kotation. 



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