46 REPORT ON THE PRUNING OF FOREST TREES. 



and after the period above mentioned, they will require little 

 more to be done to them than perhaps an occasional cut with the 

 long-handled chisel, to relieve the top, or shorten an over- 

 vigorous branch, with removing such of the under ones as may 

 from time to time be required. 



The mode of management now advocated is infinitely superior 

 to that adopted by some who make the indiscriminate pruning 

 of the side shoots or branches the object of their first attention, 

 and proceed even to the extreme of divesting the tree of such to 

 the extent of two-thirds or three-fourths of its entire height. 

 They thus deprive the plants at once of lungs, clothing, and 

 beauty, and leave only a mere armful of branches on the top. 

 Such treatment is as unnatural as it would be for a shepherd to 

 shear his sheep in the early winter, and leave them to starve 

 during the inclemency of the ensuing season ; and it would be 

 as unreasonable to expect a flock to thrive in such circumstances, 

 as to think that a plantation can prosper in the other. Our 

 object in pruning should be to assist nature — not to cripple her 

 in her operations, or deprive her altogether of the means of 

 existence ; and the naked, bare-pole appearance of trees subjected 

 to such wholesale deprivation, contrasts most unfavourably with 

 the light, airy, well-feathered, and robust look of those which 

 have been wisely but not too severely thinned. 



In the progress of growth plants generally follow certain laws, 

 the operation of which causes them to assume a definite sym- 

 metry of appearance. Where these laws are interfered with, the 

 effect is to prevent development to a greater or lesser degree. 

 We find, accordingly, in the case of fruits and flowers which have 

 been unequally exposed to the light and air, that on one side 

 they are frequently less matured and expanded than they are on 

 the other. If, however, a free and full exposure be afforded on 

 all sides, the probabilities are in favour of their being well formed. 

 The same principle will be found to obtain in the case of grow- 

 ing timber. If a preponderance of branches is permitted on one 

 side of a tree, they present a greater exposure to the atmosphere 

 on that side, and so invoke an undue supply of nourishment, to 

 the defrauding and detriment of the other members of the parent 

 stock. The consequence is, that the wood is unequally developed 

 — it is formed more rapidly, and of better quality, on the exposed 

 than on the opposite side ; and in this fact we are furnished with 

 an additional argument in favour of pruning, for the sake of pre- 

 serving the symmetry of the subject, and so permitting it to 

 produce its timber uniformly and with firmness throughout. It 

 need scarcely be added, that a shapely, pyramidal form of tree 

 can be easily given by a little attention. 



I may now refer to pointing, an operation which, if judiciously 

 followed along with thinning the branches where occasion re- 



