Crop the Croppies
CROP THE COPPICE. English, Country Dance Tune (2/4 time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. A coppice is a managed woodland area in which trees are cut down and encouraged to grow from the stump. The coppicing produces a number of relatively thin stems that are harvested ('cropped') in regular cycles, sometimes in sections from the same stump as to insure some stems each year. Typically some woods are favored for coppicing; ash (ideal for tool handles), oak (the bark was formerly used in the tanning process) and hazel (for brooms, wicker, and brushes), are typical examples. Henry VIII is recorded as having regulated to coppicing of timber for the ironmaking industry, requiring that a small section of woodland be enclosed after cutting and twelve standels to be left in each acre to grow into timber, thus insuring a continued growth of the wood. Gibbon's set the tune in the key of 'F' major in his mss.
Source for notated version: the 1823-26 music mss of papermaker and musician Joshua Gibbons (1778-1871, of Tealby, near Market Rasen, Lincolnshire Wolds) [Sumner].
Printed source: Sumner (Lincolnshire Collections, vol. 1: The Joshua Gibbons Manuscript), 1997; p. 27.
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