Forestry: planning across generations

Der Stockausschlag looks as if it had something to do with stock, and an English reader who knows the forest will hear « growing stock » in it first. That is not what it says. In German forestry der Stock is the stump left in the ground after felling, and der Stockausschlag is the ring of shoots that a hornbeam, an oak or a lime sends up from it — the whole basis of der Niederwald, woodland cut back to the stump every couple of decades. Growing stock, the timber standing in a stand, is der Holzvorrat. The two words are nevertheless relatives: English « stock » also began as a tree trunk or a stump, which is why a person can still stand « stock-still ». German kept the stump, and English moved on to the store.