Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 84.djvu/561

Rh more, vigorous trunks remain, which on reaching a suitable size are cut down and used for railroad ties, telegraph poles, or lumber, as desired; and from their stumps new coppice shoots arise, to repeat the whole history of their forebears. In some regions this coppicing has gone on for four or five generations of sprouts.

The question now before us is, "Does this continued coppicing weaken the vitality of the chestnut tree and thus make it more susceptible to disease?" The general opinion seems to be in the affirmative. Zon, speaking of the chestnut in southern Maryland says:

As stated by Dr. Clinton:

Dr. Clinton quotes Nellis, of the U. S. Forest Service, who, in an unpublished working plan on "Utilization of Blight-killed Chestnut," writes:

Without entering into the discussion as to the relation of the bark disease to coppiced areas, I will merely state that coppiced chestnut is in general apt to be affected with disease of some sort. Especially frequent are heart-rotting fungi which may enter by way of the decaying parent stump, and the unsound condition of the trunk they cause is communicated to succeeding generations. It is also conceivable that the root system of the sprouts, inasmuch as it is partly that of the parent tree, may be weaker on this account. For, although we have no evidence to prove that the parent root system becomes inherently weaker with age, yet it is reasonable to expect that the soil about it would become more and more exhausted of its nourishment, to say nothing of possible external injuries to which it might be subjected in the course of a long period of time.

As already intimated, forest fires are extremely disastrous to the