GERMAN FOREST MANAGEMENT SILVICULTURE. 249 



COPPICE MANAGEMENT. 



This practice is employed for the production of firewood, tanbark, charcoal, and wood of 

 small dimensions, and is mostly applicable only to deciduous trees. The capacity of reproduction 

 from the stump is possessed by different species in different degrees, and depends also on climate 

 and soil; shallow soil produces weaker but more numerous shoots than a deep, rich soil, and a 

 mild climate is most favorable to a continuance of the reproductive power. With most trees this 

 capacity decreases after the period of greatest height-growth; they should therefore be cut before 

 the thirtieth year, in order not to exhaust the stock too much. The oak coppices for tan bark are 

 managed in a rotation of from ten to twenty years. Regard to the preservation of reproductivity 

 makes it necessary to avoid cutting during heavy frost, to make a smooth cut without severing the 

 bark from the stem, and to make it as low as possible, thus reducing liability to injuries of the 

 stump and inducing the formation of independent roots by the sprouts. 



It will be found often that on poor and shallow soil tiees will cease to thrive, their tops dying. 

 In such cases it is a wise policy to cut them down, thus getting new, thrifty shoots, for which the 

 larger root system of the old tree can more readily provide. This practice may also be resorted to 

 in order to get a quick, straight growth, as sprouts grow more rapidly than seedlings, the increased 

 proportion of root to the part above ground giving more favorable conditions of food supply. It 

 must not be forgotten, however, that this advantage has to be compensated somewhere else by a 

 disadvantage; sprouts, though growing fast in their youth, cease to grow in height at a compara- 

 tively early period, and for the production of long timber such practice would be detrimental. 



Regard to the preservation of favorable soil conditions, which suffer by oft-repeated clearing, 

 requires the planting of new stocks where old ones have failed. Mixed growth, as everywhere, 

 gives the best result. Oaks, walnut, hickory, chestnut, elm, maples, birch, cherry, linden, catalpa, 

 and the locust also, with its root- sprouting habit, can be used for such purpose. 



If when cutting off the sprouts, at the age of from 10 to 20 years, some trees are left to grow 

 to larger size, thus combining the coppice with timber forest, a management results which the 

 Germans call " Mittelwald," and which we may call standard coppice management 



STANDARD COPPICE. 



This is the method of management which in our country deserves most attention by farmers, 

 especially in the Western prairie States, where the production of firewood and timber of small 

 dimensions is of first importance, while the timber forest, for the production of larger and stronger 

 timbers, can alone satisfy the lumber market. The advantages of this method of management, 

 combining those of the coppice and of the timber forest, are: * 



(1) A larger yield of wood per acie in a shore time. 

 C2) A better quality of wood. 



(3) A production of wood of valuable and vanous dimensions in the shortest time with hardly any additional 



COfet. 



(4) The possibility of gi\ ing closer attention to the giowtli and requhements of single individuals and of 



each species. 



(5) A ready and certain reproduction. 



(b) The possibility of collecting or using for reforestation, m addition to the coppice stocks, the seeds of the 

 standards. 



The objections to this mode of treatment are the production of branches on the standards 

 when freed from surrounding growth, and the fact that the standards act more or less injuriously 

 on the underwood which they overtop. 



The first objection can be overcome to a certain extent by pruning, and the second by proper 

 selection and adjustment of coppice wood and standards. The selection of standards — which 

 preferably should be seedlings, as coppice shoots are more likely to deteriorate in later life — must 

 be not only from such species as by isolation will grow into more useful timber, but if possible 

 from those which have thin foliage, thus causing the least injury by their cover to the underwood. 

 The latter should, of course, be taken from those kinds that will best endure shade. Oaks, ashes, 

 maples, locust, honey locust, larch, bald cypress, a few birches, and perhaps an occasional aspen, 

 answer well for the standards; the selection for such should naturally be from the best-grown 



