The coppice wood is usually sorted out after being cut down, the best poles being laid aside for the use of the hop grower, the next size for pit props, or fencing according to the demand of the moment, and so on until every pole has been sorted according to the use for which it may be intended, the lop and branches being bound into faggots for fire or oven-lighting. The following are the various uses to which underwood is applied: hoops, hurdles, crate rods, pea stakes, spars for thatching, withes for faggot-tying, sheep cages, hop poles, brooms, broom handles, skewers for butchers, chisel handles, plant stakes, whip handles, gunpowder wood and faggots. Profits will vary from 15_s._ to 25_s._ per acre, exclusive of the standards which are left, and the crop, according to age and quality, will realize from £5 per acre downwards. Great care is necessary to avoid damage to the stools when removing the fall, which is not usually done until just before the young buds are shooting out, and consequently at the time when injury is most easily brought about. The trampling of horses and passage of wheels are most injurious, while the browsing of cattle should be carefully guarded against. Good roads are always a great advantage in a coppice plantation, and to these as much of the produce as possible should be carried for loading, thus avoiding damage to the stools. Although the growth of coppice wood has its disadvantages, particularly in park scenery, yet it is valuable in this way, that should the crop from local circumstances not be found remunerative, the plantation can at any time be converted into a standing wood by allowing the best and strongest shoots from the stools to form the permanent crop. The approximate cost of forming a coppice wood per acre is as follows:— £ _s._ _d._ Trenching at 2_s._ per rod 16 0 0 5,000 trees at 35_s._ per 1,000 8 15 0 Pitting and planting 2 5 0 ———————————————— £27 0 0 CHAPTER XVIII THE FORMATION AND MANAGEMENT OF GAME COVERTS When we consider that on not a few estates in this country the value of the plantations as game coverts is wellnigh of as much importance as that of the timber produced, it will be readily seen that the successful formation and management of these is a matter of no small moment to those entrusted with the work. That game-rearing and economic forestry can be advantageously carried on in the same woods is, however, a contention we by no means feel inclined to uphold, and from which, being apart from the subject matter of the chapter, we will for the present stand aloof.