AMONG THE OAKS 127 
In forming fresh coppices, or for filling up 
blank spaces, planting or layering shoots from 
the nearest stools is much preferable to sowing 
acorns, as, though somewhat more expensive, it 
attains the desired object in a much shorter space 
of time. Except where the soil is shallow, copse- 
woods will be more likely than pure coppice to 
meet the general requirements of the market in 
the near future. Wherever coppices are desired 
to be transformed into copses, this can easily be 
done by storing standards, though it takes a long 
time to effect the change completely. 
It may be observed with regard to oak, and 
the observation also holds good for all other 
kinds of crops of wood, that in the management 
of highwoods the rotation of the fall will be 
longest on the better classes of soil, while in 
copse and coppice the most favourable soils and 
situations permit the shortest rotation, and conse- 
quently give the largest area for the annual fall. 
This will be easily understood by the tables of 
average annual growth included within chap- 
ters ix and xi. That is to say, when the 
crops are grown as highwoods for timber, the 
capital represented by the soil and the growing 
