ON THE CAUSE OF RINGSHAKE IN TREES. 199 



has grown on one side, and a spruce fir on the opposite side of 

 it, the road on the outside is not so high as the ground where 

 this oak was growing, and having a good declivity all round, 

 water would not lodge about its roots, and growing on the 

 sunny side of the plantation, snow would not lodge much 

 upon it, and I attribute the cause to the action produced upon 

 the stem by heavy winds striking upon those heavy limbs 

 overhanging the road. 



In 1862 I observed a row of oak and elm trees growing along 

 the side of a public road, with tops and trunks formed exactly 

 the same as the oak last referred to. The reason why they 

 were thus formed was on account of a close plantation growing 

 on the opposite side of the road, and the row being very closely 

 grown for a long time before being thinned out. I observed 

 splits in the majority of them, averaging 2 feet in length, and 

 into which I could in many parts insert the blade of my prun- 

 ing knife. The sap was oozing out of these splits- during the 

 whole season of their growth a few years later. I saw several 

 of them cut down, and they were badly ringshaken. Being on the 

 ridge of a side cutting, the ground was perfectly dry. In this 

 case I also attribute the cause of ringshaking to mismanagement, 

 or want of thinning and neglecting to foreshorten the heavy 

 branches in time. 



To further enter into details about individual trees, the 

 respective soils on which they grow, and the results, whether 

 sound or unsound, would, I consider, be superfluous. I there- 

 fore advance these statements as the result of careful observa- 

 tion. And if asked if it is possible to grow elm, oak, or chest- 

 nut trees to full maturity and free from ringshake upon all the 

 various classes of soil and subsoil I have mentioned, my answer 

 would be, impossible. Seeing we cannot be expected to accurately 

 ascertain the nature of the subsoil in every case, and seeing the 

 subsoil has far more to do with ringshake than the soil, our 

 difficulty lies there ; but I believe if the Pollard system were 

 more uniformly adopted, we could thus produce a crop of far 

 sounder timber from our hardwood plantations, seeing it is 

 quite practicable in the case of the elm, oak, ash, or plane trees. 

 I have not had experience in pollarding of Spanish or other classes 

 of chestnuts, but all the others I have frequently seen very 

 successfully done. And should pollarding not be considered 

 advisable, then let disbudding and foreshortening be particularly 

 attended to during at least the first forty years of the tree's 

 growth, while thinning, so as to give plenty of room to allow the 

 branches to spread, is by no means neglected ; during the same 

 period, where the trees come away well, and where they are more 

 exposed and do not make such vigorous growth, the duties I 

 have mentioned must be attended to for a longer period. Some 



