REPORT ON THE GENERAL MANAGEMENT OF PLANTATIONS. 2G7 



from the time they were relieved of the surrounding' crop, had 

 all of them ample room, some of them, as trees grown for profit, 

 superabundance, but grew with an amazing degree of rapidity. 

 Many of them were clothed with branches to within 6 feet of the 

 ground, and the tops of the branches resting upon it, each tree 

 on an average covering an area of about 300 feet. The annual 

 growths or rings which indicate the growth of the trees were in 

 some cases from fths to f ths of an inch thick, showing that the 

 trees were making from 2 to 3 cubic feet of timber annually. 

 Some of the largest trees girthed from 7 feet to 8 feet at 3 feet 

 above ground, and contained as much as 32 feet to 36 cubit feet 

 each. The average content of the whole trees was 20 cubic feet. 

 When the trees were cut down, the largest ones, with the greatest 

 quantity of branches, were found to be quite sound and of vigor- 

 ous growth ; while the smallest ones, which had their side branches 

 destroyed to 10 or 12 feet in height before being relieved of the 

 hop-pole crop, contained only from 12 to 15 cubic feet, and were 

 found, on being cut down, to be considerably decayed in the 

 heart-wood, the evident result of deficiency of branches. 



The soil upon which those trees grew was a sandy loam, from 

 10 to 12 inches deep, resting upon white, dry, and open sand- 

 stone subsoil; altitude about 300 feet above the sea; exposure, 

 north-east; sheltered from all other points by a belt of Scots pine, 

 50 to 100 yards broad; the trees 50 to 70 feet high. 



No 5. The management of natural forests coincides in many 

 respects with the management of planted woods, but in some 

 particulars it differs. Natural woods, from the circumstance of 

 being self-propagated, originating in the seed being conveyed 

 from" the parent tree by various means (principally the wind) at 

 various periods, consequently spring up in an irregular manner, 

 both in respect to age and distribution of the trees over the 

 ground .The trees in the natural forest being, therefore, less 

 regular in size than in plantations, generally require the thin- 

 ning to be performed by cutting the largest and the smallest 

 classes of trees, thus leaving the medium class to constitute 

 the permanent crop. The time most proper for thinning natural 

 forests cannot well be specified, and owing to the slowness of 

 growth in some cases, and rapidity in others, no definite age 

 can be fixed. The distance apart at which the crop springs up 

 influence in an important degree the period at which thinning is 

 required. 



The writer, during the last four years, having practised thin- 

 ning pretty extensively, has had the advantage of witnessing its 

 effects upon portions of forest of all ages and size. The follow- 

 ing is the system and results of observation : — 



To thin in all cases before the side branches touch each other. 

 In some cases this is required to be done before the trees are 



