10 PRACTICAL FORESTRY. 



intervals to bum over the land, each followed by a new crop of 

 sprouts. When a farmer does with the ax what is often done by fire 

 he is using the system of simple coppice. Let us suppose a farmer 

 has a woodlot covered principally with chestnut sprouts which he 

 wants to manage for the steady production of railroad ties. He 

 knows that chestnut sprouts are usually large enough for ties at the 

 age of 35 years. In order to insure a steady yield of trees fit for ties, 

 he divides the whole woodlot into thirty-five parts of equal productive 

 capacity, and cuts one part clean every year. All the new sprouts 

 that spring up on the part cut in any year are of the same age. At 

 the end of thirty-five years, when the whole woodlot has been cut 

 over, the thirty-five parts form a series of even-aged groups of sprouts 

 from 1 to 35 years old. Every year the sprouts on one part reach 

 the age of 35 years and are ready for cutting. 



Simple coppice is a very useful silvicultural system, and the easiest 

 of all to apply. The chief requirements for its success are good 

 reproduction from the stumps, proper thinning (where thinning can 

 be made to pay), and enough young seedlings among the sprouts to 

 replace exhausted stumps with vigorous young ones. Stumps from 

 which the sprouts have been cut many times finally grow weak and 

 lose their power of sprouting. 



In cutting sprouts it is important not to loosen the bark on the 

 stumps, for that impairs their sprouting power, and to make the cut 

 as near the ground as possible. Stumps cut level with the surface 

 sprout best of all. In simple coppice, weU handled, the reproduction 

 takes place ©f itself without the need of further attention from the 

 forester. 



Many thousands of acres of American woodland, especially in New 

 England, New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, and in other 

 places where chestnut is the principal tree, are treated under a rough 

 system of simple coppice. 



Stored coppice. — Among the trees which will produce only fuel, 

 fence posts, or railroad ties there often stand in a woodlot others 

 which would yield much larger returns if they were allowed to reach 

 a greater age and size than the trees about them. If there were some 

 white oaks scattered through the chestnut coppice just described, it 

 might be well to let them grow large enough for the production of 

 high-priced material like quartered oak lumber. In that case it 

 would be necessary at the time of cutting the sprouts to select and 

 leave standing a certain number of white oaks on every acre. As 

 many of them as survived the increased exposure to wind and sun 

 following the sudden removal of their neighbors would remain as 

 standards over the young sprouts. The white oak standards thus 

 chosen would remain uncut during two, three, four, or sometimes 



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