102 OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 
by the ancestors of the present landholders have 
a truly pious and zsthetic value of their own, for 
the loss of which mere money can never com- 
pensate. The work of destruction is ever more 
rapid than that of construction; and a couple 
of woodmen with axe and saw could, in a few 
hours at most, bring down with a crash to the 
ground the stateliest monarchs in the forest. 
The presence of vast numbers of large-crowned 
oak trees in the copses is, however, a concrete 
factor that must be taken into account wherever 
the owner may desire to apply business principles 
to the management of his woods. The oldest or 
the most interesting trees can easily be preserved, 
more especially if growing at the edge of the 
woods or at the margin or crossing-points of 
rides and green lanes. The others should be 
gradually removed during the next two or three 
falls of coppice, and should be replaced by stor- 
ing fresh standards grown more in accordance 
with the requirements of the timber market of 
to-day. 
The oak coppices freely, and can send out 
good healthy stool-shoots up to the age of 
sixty, or even, under exceptionally favourable 
