The Oak. 



Oaks ; but it would shelter them at the same time ; 

 and where the Hazel interfered too much with the Oaks, 

 it might be cut away with the hook. By the time that 

 the Hazel coppices were fit to cut for the first time^ the 

 Oaks would have obtained a considerable height; perhaps 

 eight or ten feet. This would give them the mastership 

 of the HAZEL ; and, after the second cutting of the 

 Hazel, there would begin to be an Oak wood, with a 

 Hazel coppice beneath ; and in the mean while the cop- 

 pice would have produced very nearly as much as it would 

 have produced, if there had been no Oaks growing on it. 

 By the time that four cuttings of the Hazel would have 

 taken place, the coppice would be completely subdued by 

 the Oaks. It would produce no more hoops or hurdles ; 

 but then the Oaks would be ready to afford a profit. 



435. I have heard, of the planting of Scotch Firs as nurses 

 to the Oaks, and I saw an instance of this upon a small 

 scale in a plantation in the New Forest ; but, the Firs grow 

 a great deal too fast for the Oaks ; and though they shelter 

 them, they draw them up into too slender a size at the 

 same time. It is a sort of shelter, which is too much for 

 the Oaks ; and, while the Firs do not produce a crop equal 

 in value to the tenth part of a HAZEL coppice, they cannot, 

 when once cut down, be renewed. They draw away the 

 goodness of the ground, as long as they exist, more than 

 the Hazel ; and in short, in every point of view, they are, 

 as nurses to Oaks, inferior to the other. 



436. The other way of raising Oak plantations is by sow^ 

 ing the seeds in ground previously well ploughed or digged; 

 or indeed trenched, which is still a great deal better. 

 Drills are made by a drill-plough, or by the hand, and the 

 acorns put along the drill and covered over; in this case. 



