402 MAINTENANCE OF A SUFFICIENCY OP COPPICING STOCK. 



frost and other destructive weather influences, &c., the trees at 

 various points may cease to be able to coppice or may be able to 

 produce only a very weak regrowth. At such points the stock 

 must obviously be renewed by means of seedlings. 



Rhizomes. — In the case of bamboos this loss of coppicing power 

 does not take place partially and locally, but occurs all at once at 

 the final gregarious seeding, when the entire original crop dies and 

 the ground gets profusely and sucessfully sown naturally. But 

 although there is no delay in the appearance of the new generation, 

 the young crop can yield no marketable produce for a consi- 

 derable number of years. Hence it is advisable once for all to 

 artificially replace the clumps that die out sporadically, and also 

 those that have become weak or have been badly damaged or are 

 not thriving. After the lapse of one generation or so, there will 

 then be numerous clumps of different ages and self-sown produc- 

 tive ones will never be wanting. 



Pollards. — As regards pollards, since they are seldom kept 

 long enough to be able to seed, their replacement must necessarily 

 be effected artificially as they individually die off or become un- 

 fit for preservation. 



Coppice of stool-shoots and root-suckers. — If there are no 

 stores, seeding will be uncertain, or at any rate far too rare and 

 ineffective to be depended on. Hence the renewal of the cop- 

 picing stock will nearly always necessitate recourse to artificial 

 means. Sowings progress so slowly, that, to have any success at 

 all, they would have to be made many years previous to the coppice 

 exploitation ; but at that early age a copse is generally so dense, 

 that the seedlings would seldom survive under the heavy cover. 

 Hence planting will be the rule. According to the circumstances 

 of the case, either large schooled seedlings will be put down im- 

 mediately after the exploitation and at once headed down, or small 

 seedlings will be planted one or two years before the exploitation, 

 the forest, if necessary, being sufficiently thinned immediately 

 overhead. In the latter case, the seedlings will not be headed 

 down, but will be cut back with the coppice. In either case, the 

 regrowth from the seedlings will generally have to bo protected 

 during the whole of the ensuing rotation against suppression, and 

 it will be only at the beginning of the second rotation that they will 

 form an integral part of the coppice. 



In the case of a stored copse the end desired is attained either 

 by self-sowing after the coppice exploitation, or, that failing, 

 by the use of large or middle-sized schooled transplants imme- 



