26 ENGLISH ESTATE FORESTRY 



The above, if not the only ones, are at least the principal 

 causes responsible for the condition of English plantations 

 which have passed middle age in many parts of the country. 

 They may not apply to every individual plantation, but, taking 

 one with another, we may safely state that a thin stock on 

 the ground and a coarse and inferior class of timber are 

 their prominent characteristics, and that they vary to a 

 greater or less extent from the ideal which advanced sylvi- 

 culturists have before their eyes. 



The condition of the coppice with standards, which 

 covers so large a portion of the woodland area in the south 

 of England, is little better, if not actually worse, than 

 plantations. These coppice woods in many cases were 

 formed two or three centuries ago, but a considerable area 

 of them was planted from one hundred to one hundred 

 and fifty years back from the present time. The object in 

 planting them was doubtless twofold : first, that of supplying 

 oak timber for the navy ; second, supplying the requirements 

 of rural districts in firewood, hurdles, charcoal, and many 

 other forms of produce which have little significance at the 

 present time. The condition of these woods may be said to 

 have been unfavourably affected by the great difficulty of 

 raising up young standards amongst the underwood or 

 coppice. When first planted or sown, the oak, ash, or 

 other standards had an equal opportunity of maintaining 

 their existence with the hazel or other growth intended 

 as underwood. They probably stood quite thick enough 

 upon the ground for the first fifty or sixty years, and little 

 was done but to weed out a few of the weaker or damaged 

 trees each time that the underwood was cut. As time went 

 on, and the trees increased in size and value, the temptation 

 to cut and dispose of them became greater, and for the last 

 fifty years at any rate, if not longer, the mature standards in 

 almost every coppice wood in England have been severely 

 thinned out. No doubt many of these standards were fully 

 ripe; and had a proper succession been maintained by 

 replanting at every fall of the underwood, little harm would 

 have been done. But owing to the difficulties already 

 referred to, and the greater importance attached to ground 

 game by modern sportsmen, young standards were either 



