Pollarding

Pollarding (to poll, to cut off, or shave the head) is the cutting off of the whole crown of a tree, leaving it to send out new branches from the top of the stem. Trees thus treated are called pollards. The new branches are never equal in magnitude to the original branches of the tree, although often more numerous, and when pollarding is often repeated the scars and stumps form a thick ring at the top of the stem, from which many small branches spring. Pollards are not beautiful; but pollarding is practised with advantage in districts where fuel is scarce, the branches being cut off in order to be used for fuel, and the operation repeated every third or fourth year. Willows, poplars, alders, elms, oaks, and limes are the trees most frequently pollarded, and in some parts of Europe the white mulberry. The trees of most rapid growth are preferred where fuel is the object; and willows, poplars, and alders are planted along water-courses, and in rows in moist meadows and bogs. Oaks are sometimes pollarded, chiefly for the sake of the bark of their branches, and the whole treatment very much resembles that of copse-wood. See COPSE.