158 OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 
be grown as standards in copsewoods. Indeed, 
owing to the much larger number of trees that 
can thus be retained as standards without unduly 
overshadowing the coppice, ash and larch will in 
many cases prove more profitable than oak in 
this respect ; and such is certainly one of the best 
methods of growing ash. 
On marshy lands of the better class, where 
oak can be grown with advantage, a sprinkling 
of ash often improves the growth of the crops; 
and patches of ash in the better parts of the alder 
groves can be made to add considerably to the 
returns, such patches being underplanted during 
the later stages of their development. At the 
present moment the cultivation of ash on soils 
suitable for its growth seems a very attractively- 
remunerative sort of investment, while the facts 
that it seeds freely, can be propagated so easily, 
and can be grown to the best advantage in 
mixed crops along with beech, oak, maples, &c., 
make it comparatively easy to raise and handle 
as part of a woodland crop. 
All of the three kinds of maple common in 
Britain, the maple or Norway maple (cer pla- 
tanoides), the sycamore, great maple, or Scots 
