HIGHWOODS, COPSES, ETC. 283 
the underwood as a rule suffers from being patchy. 
There are usually blanks here and there, and 
even throughout the rest of the area the crop is 
not as thick as it might be; while it not in- 
frequently happens that the stock actually on 
the ground is not that which might be grown 
with most profit on the given soil and situa- 
tion. 
These defects of the overwood can only be 
remedied gradually during successive falls, so as 
to bring the copse into a normally stocked con- 
dition. Something may often, however, be done 
by judicious pruning to correct the excessive 
branch development, by the careful and clean 
removal of lower branches not exceeding about 
three inches in diameter. The lower side being 
cut into first of all, to prevent tearing of the 
bark down the stem, the branches should be 
sawn off close to the stem, trimmed smooth, and 
well tarred to prevent wound-rot, and the tarring 
should be repeated till the wounds heal and be- 
come completely overgrown. But this operation 
must be conducted cautiously in place of being 
carried on in a wholesale manner, else the stems 
are apt to send out a flush of adventitious shoots 
