English Coppices and Copsewoods. 303 



without felling, till they are ten inches square within a yard 

 of the ground. Copses above this growth felled, to leave 

 twelve great oaks ; or in defect of them other timber trees as 

 above, and so to be left for twenty years longer, and to be 

 inclosed seven years. In sum, you are to spare as many 

 likely trees for timber as with discretion you can." 



The underwood was " cut from January, at latest, till mid- 

 March or April, or from mid-September till near the end of 

 November.'" As may also be very strongly recommended at 

 the present time (wherever labour and funds are available, 

 and the crop is likely to become more profitable by such 

 treatment), he advocated that the coppices should " for the 

 first two years be kept diligently weeded and cleaned, which 

 is as necessary as fencing and guarding from cattle." This 

 is quite true, only nowadays the monetary returns yielded bv 

 coppice-hags are often so small as to make such weeding and 

 cleaning an operation that would not be profitable. 



Indeed, Evelyn's directions and remarks are sc sound and 

 practical as to be just as suitable for application now as the} r 

 were 250 years ago. There is so much which is not merely of 

 interest, but which may very well be applied for the improve- 

 ment of copsewoods to-day, that it is well to take note of many 

 of his precepts; because they are every bit of as much value 

 now as ever they were. After all, the most modern scientific 

 methods for the treatment of coppice with standards (already 

 long customary in France and Germany, but only now begin- 

 ningto make way in England) are apparently only systematised 

 modifications of the practices obtaining and of the recom- 

 mendations made for the. improvement of coppices on English 

 estates during the seventeenth century. Regarding copse- 

 woods we do not so much need to borrow ideas from foreign 

 countries as to revive this national branch of arboricultural 

 art, wmich seems once to have been far better understood than 

 during the last fifty years. 'My reason for saying so much 

 about the old methods is that many improvements will be 

 effected if landowners are again able to resort to them. Thus, 

 Evelyn strongly advocated a continuous succession of annual 

 falls, which seems to imply that even then fellings were some- 

 times as casual, haphazard, and irregular as is now often the 



