480 English Coppices and Copsewoods. 



stores for timber were selected from seedling saplings only, 

 and blanks in the underwood were filled — 



(i simply by plashing the shoots where a vacancy occurs. This is done by cutting 

 the shoot about half through with a bill : the shoot thus cut is laid along the ground ; 

 at each of the joints a cut in the direction of the bough is made, over which a little 

 fine mould and turf are laid ; the shoot is kept close to the ground by means of pegs. 

 At each point the shoot that is plashed will take root, and throw out several saplings. 

 As soon as the shoot that has been plashed appears to have taken sufficient root in 

 each of its points (which generally happens in two or three years) it is entirely 

 separated from the parent stool ; after this is dune the shoot itself is divided in every 

 point where it has taken root, and thus several stout and flourishing saplings are pro- 

 cured from one shoot, which are found to thrive better than the shoots managed in 

 the usual manner, and to be less hazardous than fresh planted trees." 



This is still the very best way of filling blank spaces in 

 copse. Ash, especially, takes uncommonly well by this 

 method and throws up strong shoots during the first year. 

 The most profitable rotation (in 1 8 1 3) was about fourteen years, 

 but the coppices were often cut between nine and ten years, 

 so that the farmers, w T ho rented them, should have two crops 

 during their twenty-one years' leases ; hence the rental value 

 was less than it otherwise might have been, although 

 " the most common rent of copsewoods in the Weald is from 

 12s. to 16s. per acre." The value of the yield from coppice 

 naturally varied considerably according to rotation, market 

 and communications. " If the copsewood is allowed to 

 stand only ten or eleven years, its value seldom reaches £ 16 

 per acre, unless in particularly favourable circumstances ; 

 if it be fourteen years old, and contain a good proportion 

 ot wood fit for hoops, twenty-feet hop-poles and gunpowder 

 charcoal, the value of an acre will run from £18 to £24." 



Improved communications by means of steam, the abolition 

 of the duty on timber and other foreign imports, the use of 

 chemical extracts for tanning, changes in agricultural methods, 

 and the use of substitutes in place of the wood formerly supplied 

 by coppices, have all, along with other causes, contributed to the 

 decline of the profits from copse, till now in many parts of the 

 country it hardly yields any tangible return worth speaking 

 of. Even before the market for small hop-poles began to 

 vanish owing to the introduction of posts and wire, the 2,400 to 

 3,000 poles per acre required could, in many places, be more 

 cheaply supplied by the thinnings from young larch and fir 

 plantations ; and in many districts hurdles are no longer in 



