80 



pruning or lopping off branches of trees for firewood and 

 manure or for fodder or litter for their cattle. Where this 

 practice prevails, the transport of timber to a distance is 

 frequently out of the question, and there is often conse- 

 quently more material than the people can utilise, while 

 fodder during the winter is urgently needed. In such cases 

 the method cannot be condemned, as it is perhaps the sole 

 means of furnishing the fodder required ; and it may, there- 

 fore, sometimes be necessary to recognise it as a justifiable 

 modification of the coppice method. Conifers, which in the 

 Himalayas are often treated in this way, do not of course 

 throw out shoots like broad-leaved genera ; but the smaller 

 branches left and new shoots springing from buds on these 

 branches replace those removed. When necessary, the 

 working of forests according to this method may be organised 

 in the same way as for ordinary coppice on a short rotation 

 of from 5 to 10 years. 



3. Modificatiou of the branch-coppice method. — In the pasture 

 grounds of some countries there is practised a modification of 

 this method which consists in pollarding all the trees at a 

 height of 5 or 6 feet from the ground, so that the young 

 shoots produced may be out of reach of cattle. These shoots 

 are removed a few at a time, as in the coppice-selection 

 method; and the working-plan consists in dividing the 

 area into a few coupes to be cut over in rotation, and in 

 limiting the size of the branches to be cut. The larger 

 branches hear seed from which a sufficient number of young 

 trees are produced to replace the old pollards as they decay ; 

 but reproduction, however sought, necessitates the exclusion 

 of cattle^ until the young trees grow out of reach. 



Section V. — The working scheme and the CAiiCTjiATioN 



OF THE POSSIBILITY UNDER THE METHOD OE COPPICE 

 WITH STANDARDS. 



1. General working scheme.— The method of coppice with 

 standards is applied in exactly the same way as simple 

 coppice, the difl'erence between the two methods — a very 

 great one— being in the selection and reservation of the 

 standards. The exploitable age is calculated for the under* 

 wood only, and in the same way as in the case of simple 

 coppice : the age of standards removed being then always a 

 multiple of the number of years in the coppice rotation. 

 Generally, however, the underwood is felled at a more 



