A HISTORY OF SURREY 



Long straight timber is what now commands the best price, though 

 the national copsewood system of British arboriculture does not favour 

 this habit of growth to anything like the extent that might be attained 

 if the highwoods were less freely thinned than usually is the case. 



Stevenson gives a good idea of the copsewoods in this weald of 

 Surrey about ninety years ago.^ Indeed his remarks are so interesting 

 that some of them are well worth quoting in extenso, as illustrative of the 

 method of treating copsewoods before this branch of forestry became 

 almost a lost art in England : — 



Copse IFoods. — These consist principally of the oak, birch, ash, chestnut, sallow, 

 hazel and alder. As it is the usual practice of the woodmen of the Weald of Surrey 

 to look entirely to seedlings for a supply of timber, the sapling shoots from the stools 

 are the principal source of copse-wood. After a fall of timber, these saplings are pre- 

 served and taken care of, and thus the undergrowth is continually increasing, and the 

 demand for copse-wood regularly supplied. It is plain that if the stools of the fallen 

 timber had but common justice done to them in protecting them from cattle, and 

 draining the adjoining ground, a most ample supply would be obtained from every 

 part of the Weald. But though this judicious mode is followed in many parts, yet a 

 very slight inspection of the underwoods will convince any one that it is not nearly 

 as general as it ought to be. Proper care and attention, especially to keeping the 

 soil dry, will go a great way to ensure a full and regular supply of copsewood ; but 

 as even under the most judicious and attentive management a partial failure will some- 

 times happen, it is proper to mention a method which has been found by many pro- 

 prietors of woods in Surrey effectually to answer the purpose of supplying such failures. 

 It is simply by plashing the shoots where a vacancy appears. This is done by 

 cutting the shoot about half through with a bill : the shoot thus cut is laid along the 

 ground ; at each of the joints a cut in the direction of the bough is made, over which 

 a little fine mould and turf are laid ; the shoot is kept close to the ground by means 

 of pegs. At each point, the shoot that is plashed will take root and throw out several 

 saplings. As soon as the shoot that has been plashed appears to have taken sufficient 

 root in each of its points (which generally happens in two or three years), it is entirely 

 separated from the parent stool : after this is done, the shoot itself is divided in every 

 point where it has taken root, and thus several stout and flourishing saplings are pro- 

 cured from one shoot, which are found to thrive better than the shoots managed in 

 the usual manner, and to be less hazardous than fresh planted trees. 



It is not, however, only in the direct advantage of this mode that its superiority 

 consists : it is plain, that whoever adopts it must pay more than the usual attention 

 to keep the ground clean and dry, otherwise the shoots thus managed would be over- 

 powered and destroyed before they had taken sufficient root. As holding out the 

 necessity of working the ground, therefore, this mode should be recommended and 

 adopted, even though the direct advantages derived from it are less certain and im- 

 portant than they actually are. . . . 



yige of Cutting. — The value of underwood has risen so much lately that this 

 circumstance alone, even if no other operated to the same end, would naturally cause 

 the underwood to be cut down before its proper season. To this may be added, that 

 where a farm is held under a lease for twenty-one years, possessed of any great extent 

 of coppice, the farmer is tempted to get two cuttings during the tenancy of his lease, 

 even though neither of them afford much profit, and though by this method he is not 

 doing justice to his landlord or his successor. 



Perhaps the greater part of the copse-wood in the Weald of Surrey is cut between 

 nine and ten years : this however is allowed to be much too early. Taking the 

 different kinds of soil, or rather the only varieties that exist in this part of Surrey, the 

 paler and moister, and the darker and drier clays ; and the different kinds of wood 

 which usually form the coppice, fourteen years are considered necessary to bring them 



* Op. cit. pp. 416-29 and 436-38. 

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