712 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. [Mai:. 



as oak, etc.) cannot be commenced too early, but may be begun too 

 late, the more so if they never have experienced any prior operation. 



The man who truncates large limbs, leaviug wounds on the trunk 

 twenty or thirty inches in size, must have very little knowledge of 

 and sympathy with the subject brought under the power of such 

 cruel treatment. Yes, but what are the causes that have co- 

 operated to produce these huge limbs ? It would be interesting to 

 know how these trees come to have such huge limbs ? Are they 

 due to pruning or to the want of pruning ? 



If nature was to be the model on which we choose to base our 

 line of procedure, we must observe how close she plants, and how 

 severely she prunes during the primordial years of tree growth. 

 The process of pruning is not less severe in the natural forests than 

 the process of thinning ; but whether either of these operations is 

 so well and equally done as when done by tlie operation of man is 

 one of those technical points in forestry not yet settled. 



In trying to comprehend the limit of nature's capacity, it should 

 always be kept in view that all soils (the poorest and the richest) 

 have a maximum of yield, beyond which they will not produce. 

 And trusting the matter to nature, does nature distribute her 

 greatest product to the best advantage over any area ? or does man 

 apportion it to greater advantage ? 



We are not without plenty of examples, in every part of this 

 Britain, where the M'oods have been altogether abandoned to the 

 absolute immunity of nature, but with what result ? What is the 

 meaning of this plantation and that plantation all run to branches, 

 if pruning be an evil ? Or w'hat is the meaning of this other and 

 that other plantation of moribund, hide-bound, dead, deformed, and 

 attenuated trees, unable to support the burden of their own weak- 

 ness, if thinning be an evil ? These are questions we never see 

 satisfactorily answered. The fact is, this method of leaving our 

 woods and forests to the control of nature has been too long and 

 too much in practice to further prolong or encourage the ex- 

 periment. 



Captain Eogers remarks that " we get our finest timber, freest 

 from knots, from unpruned forests." That is not so, however, in 

 regard to our home-gTown timber. And the foreign timber imported 

 into this country is produced entirely under different conditions, 

 both as to soil, climate, and planting. For one tree we plant on a 

 yard of ground, nature in the natural forest perchance plants a 

 thousand. We plant at specified distances. Mature plants and 

 stocks the ground to the fullest extent. There is no space in the 

 forests of nature to grow strong branches, and for this reason there 

 is no necessity for artificial pruning. Until we are prepared to 



