English Coppices and Copsewoods. 481 



use to any great extent. And while the prices obtainable for 

 •coppice material now vary from only about one-sixth to one- 

 third of what they used to be, the labour necessary for working 

 the wood up into marketable form has gradually become both 

 scarcer and dearer ; so that after deducting the cost of the 

 latter, very little indeed often remains as the net return from 

 the land and the capital represented by the growing woods. 



Besides these very grave drawbacks, however, there is an 

 additional factor which very often diminishes the value of the 

 underwoods to an enormous extent, and that is rabbits. 

 Wherever they are allowed to exist they do damage ; and 

 when they are allowed to multiply into large numbers, as is 

 often the case for sporting purposes, they can, during winters 

 in which snow lies long on the ground, do damage to an 

 ■extent that it is hopeless to expect: to remedy. Letting the 

 woods for rabbit shooting then pays better than working 

 them as copses ; but in such cases one usually omits from the 

 reckoning a true estimate of the damage done in depreciating 

 the capital value of the wood and the soil. Rabbit-infested 

 •coppices are often so severely damaged that the underwood is 

 hardly worth felling ; and, of course, the standards are nothing 

 like sufficient in number to close up and form canopy 

 as highwoods. Old game books will prove very 

 clearly that rabbits were not allowed to swarm in 

 large numbers long ago ; if they had been, the copsewoods 

 would now be in even a much worse condition than they are. 



Although, of course, the English coppice woods vary 

 greatly in character and composition, and as regards the 

 rotation at which they are worked in order to yield produce 

 most suitable for the requirements of the local market, yet 

 the kinds of wood grown and the rotation are much the same 

 as they have been for as far back as we have any exact 

 knowledge. Hazel, ash, oak, chestnut, sallow, birch ana 

 sycamore form the bulk of the crops, worked with rotations 

 usually varying between seven or eight up to fourteen or 

 sixteen years, although in exceptional cases they may even 

 extend to from twenty to thirty-five years. Hazel and chestnut 

 prove the most durable stools as to coppicing power, ana arc 

 valuable for hoops and hurdles ; but, wherever it grows well, 



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