262 CULTURE AND MANAGEMENT OF OAK. 



to be cut down. The purchaser will be under no 

 temptation to exchange any of it for the maturer 

 produce of the stools which actually belong to him ; 

 or if he do, it is impossible that the proprietor can 

 be a loser ; and the number of the nursing-stools, as 

 we may call them, being ascertained and mentioned 

 in the articles of sale, it will be easy to discover 

 whether any fraudulent liberties are taken with them ; 

 or in other words, whether the purchaser cuts down 

 more of the crop than he is entitled to by the condi- 

 tions of his bargain. 



If, after what has been said, the reader should 

 still persist in thinking the scheme here proposed 

 impracticable, or at least too troublesome to be 

 adopted, he may have recourse to various other 

 modes of accomplishing the object now under consi- 

 deration. A coppice of small extent may be suffi- 

 ciently sheltered by surrounding it with a thickly 

 planted belt of any kind or kinds of trees adapted to 

 the soil. In larger grounds, birch and mountain- 

 ash may be planted at proper distances throughout 

 the whole. These should be encouraged to grow 

 rather in the shape of bushes than trees, which they 

 may be made to do by heading them down when 

 they are two or three feet high, and letting the 

 young shoots which will afterwards spring up, grow 



