XIV. 
COPPICE 
Coprice, or Copse Wood, consists of trees naturally grown 
or planted, which spring freely from the root, and are cropped 
or cut down periodically before they attain the usual size of 
timber trees. There are situations in which the coppice has 
a finer appearance, and as an embellishment is more in 
accordance with the accompanying scene than full-grown 
timber trees, such as on small islands, along the margin of 
lakes and rivers, in narrow belts, in broken and detached 
corners of land, and not unfrequently it may afford a vista 
in the forest, where taller trees would exclude the variety 
and richness of the scene. But if it is principally. with the 
view of realizing a profitable return that a plantation of 
coppice is to be raised and husbanded, very few situations 
admit of this being practised with great success. 
The change that has taken place during the last twenty or 
thirty years in the value of coppice-wood and bark, compared 
with that of ordinary plantations, is very great. The intro- 
duction of foreign bark and other substances adapted for tan- 
ning leather has reduced the British bark to about half its 
former value ; the best oak bark now seldom exceeds £7 per 
ton, notwithstanding the rise of all sorts of wages, which 
enhances the cost of harvesting the commodity, while, during 
the period referred to, the timber of ordinary plantations has 
greatly advanced in value. 
There are some soils on which coppice grows freely for ten, 
twenty, or perhaps thirty years, until it attains to nearly that 
number of feet in height, when its progress becomes almost 
imperceptible. This may sometimes arise from the effects of 
