SUCCESSION CROPS OF OAK. 



261 



would be safe to offer, as if the whole were put up 

 to sale. The stools intended to be spared could be 

 marked by the simple expedient of turning up a sod 

 beside each, which would be a sufficient guide to 

 those employed in cutting, while it would be a check 

 on the purchaser to prevent him from encroaching 

 on the proprietor's right, by taking more of the cop- 

 pice than he bargained for, or from leaving only the 

 produce of inferior stools, instead of a fair average 

 of good and bad. These hints are given, not as des- 

 cribing the best possible method of accomplishing 

 the object in question, but to show that the scheme 

 is practicable, and that it involves no difficulty 

 which may not be surmounted by a very moderate 

 share of ingenuity and attention. 



In a coppice which has been once cut on the above 

 mentioned system, there can be no recurrence of si- 

 milar inconveniences on any future occasion. The 

 young crop, from the stools whose former produce 

 was cut down at the return of the stated period, will 

 require the aid of the nurses till it is five or six, or 

 perhaps eight or nine years old. When these nur- 

 ses are cut down, therefore, the new crop of coppice 

 that arises from the stools will be so far behind the 

 rest in growth as to be easily distinguished, without 

 the aid of any artificial mark to show that it is not 



