COMPOUND COPSES rSDER CONTEKSION. 295 



none of them can be removed by this felling. Indeed, t) obtain as 

 much cover as is required after the Primary Felling has been made> 

 there ia no alternative but to preserve, besides all the standards, a 

 goodly number of the poles of the underwood ; for, otherwise 

 the coupe would consist entirely of trees standing each one some 

 distance from the next, the result being not such a Primary Coupe 

 as is here required, with an all but complete leaf-canopy overhead, 

 but a Compound Coppice Coupe, in which the exploited stools are 

 sure to throw up shoots and the production of a pure seedling crop 

 thus become a physical impossibility. The PrimaiT Felling we re- 

 quire may hence be summarily described as follows : — Clearing the 

 ground of all low bushy growth, extraction of all overtopped stool- 

 eboots, lopping off of the low branches of poles, and sometimes even 

 of formed trees, to raise their cover, and, lastly, the removal from 

 the upper story of the leaf-canopy of trees possessing only a slight 

 development of crown, these being selected one here, another there, 

 and so on, so as to make small well-distributed lacunae throughout 

 the entire leaf-canopy. After such a felling, the soil ought to be 

 quite clean and the view unobstructed, a characteristic whicb dif- 

 ferentiates it from a well-executed Thinning ; moreover, the cir- 

 culation of the air should be unimpeded and the rays of the sun 

 ought to reach the ground in small patches as if passed through a 

 sieve. The seeds that fall from the trees above would then remain 

 in a perfect state of preservation throughout the winter and germi- 

 nate early enough in spring ; while, thanks to the cover overhead, 

 any oak anJ beech and even hornbeam seedlings that came up 

 thus, would not only receive sufficient light to live on for years but 

 also run no risk of being choked up by a rank crop of grass or bv a 

 strong regrowth from exploited stools. Such a Primary Felling (we 

 may aptly term it a Caxopied PriMAry Coups) can yield but a 

 small outturn, and with respect tj is executi -u it is both expedient 

 and necessary to give complete latitude to the Executive Forest 

 Officer, just as is done in the case of Thinnings. AVe thus see that 

 the operation in qnestioa differs, and this in several respects, from 

 the Dark Primary Felling, which finds its true place in a regularly 

 constituted high forest. Here lies the very keystone of the whole 

 conversion. 



According to the prevailing climate the years of abundant seed- 

 ing occur at longer or shorter intervals. Besides this, it is aa 



