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OF FOREST-TREES, 169

but though the seldom fall yields the more timber, yet the frequent makes chapthe underwood the thicker; therefore at ten or twelve years growth, says V yMr. Cook, make the fall in shallow ground, and fourteen in deeper.—

If many timber-trees grow in your copses which are to be cut down, fellboth them and the under-wood, as near the ground as may be ; but thisis to be understood where the wood is very thick; otherwise, it isadvisable to stock up the thinner, especially in great timber, and to set inthe holes Elm, Cherry, Poplar, Sallow, Service ; and so these trees, whichare apt to grow from the running-root, thicken the wood exceedingly;whilst the very roots will pay for the grubbing, and yield you some feetof the best timber; whereas being let stand, nothing would have grown.

If the ground be a shallow soil, forbear filling the holes quite, but setsome running-wood in the loosened earth , and the ends of the old rootsbeing cut, will furnish the sides of the holes speedily. In thin copses,it is profitable to lay some boughs athwart, which will be rooted toadvantage against next fall. All rotten stubs among our under-woodsshould be extirpated, to make way for seedlings, and young roots tospring and run: The cutting slanting;, smooth and close, is of great im-portance and frequent felling gives way and air to the subnascentseedlings, and the rest will make lusty shoots.

As to what numbers and scantlings you are to leave on every acre, thestatutes are our general guides,, at least the legal. It is a very ordinary:copse which will not afford three or four firsts, that is, bests; fourteenseconds, twelve thirds, eight wavers, &c. according to which proportionsthe sizes of young trees in copsing are to succeed one another. By thestatute of 35 Henry VIII. in copses or under-woods, felled at twentv-four years growth, there were to be left twelve standills, or stores of Oak ,upon each acre ; in defect of so many Oaks, the same number of Elms,

Ash, Asp, or Beech; and they to be such as are of likely trees for.timber, and of such as have been spared at some former felling, unlefsthere were none ; in which case they are to be then left, and so to con-tinue without felling, till they are ten inches square within a yard of theground. 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.