Although coppice wood has deteriorated considerably in value during late years, yet in certain districts and on suitable soils its cultivation is still to be recommended. Unfortunately, however, the uses to which coppice wood are in the main applied are much localized, and this, with the bulky nature of the commodity, will to a very considerable extent restrict its sale to the localities in which it is used. Thus in parts of Kent and Sussex hop poles find a ready market, pea and bean stakes in the gardening districts around London, crate wood in the neighbourhood of potteries, willow and ash in basket-making localities, and faggot wood wherever kilns abound, or in the environs of populous districts generally. It will, therefore, be seen that next to the question of soil probably the most important is that of local demand, so that in forming a coppice plantation only such underwood should be used as there is a demand for in the particular district. Foreign importations and preferential carriage rates have also dealt hardly with the profitable cultivation of coppice wood. Coppice wood may either be grown alone or in company with large standard trees, but the latter must at all times be kept sufficiently thin, so as not to overshadow and kill out the undergrowth. There are advantages, too, in employing standards for the protection they afford to the young shoots in spring, as also in the amount realized for the periodical thinnings to which they may be subjected. For this purpose the oak is to be recommended, but such wide-spreading trees as the ash, elm and beech, which produce so dense a shade as to kill out or seriously injure all vegetation that might spring up beneath them, are to be avoided. Generally where the health and vigour of the coppice wood are points of first consideration, it will not be advisable to allow the standard trees to occupy altogether more than about one-fifth of the wooded area; and even then the lower branches should be pruned off, so that the effects of shade will be mitigated as much as possible. As to the woods which coppice most freely, the ash, oak and hazel occupy the first rank, at least in a profitable sense, the elm, willow, beech, birch, hornbeam, alder and sycamore occupying a second, but, as before stated, the nature of the soil, and less so the altitude and exposure, have everything to do with the particular species that will succeed best. Thus ash will do well where the soil is moist and loamy, the Spanish chestnut in sandy or gravelly districts, for rich plains and hollows the oak will be most remunerative, the alder and willow in marshy ground, and where bare and exposed, the birch, hazel, beech and hornbeam will succeed best.