-752 THE USES OF THE THICKET. [April 



pruning them and pinching off the surplus of buds, will not the 

 labour on these three thousand young trees be completely lost ? 

 Has it not been suggested even that every young tree ought to be 

 pruned or disbudded every year ? How is this labour to be over- 

 taken on any scale which is only moderately extensive ? 



On the other hand, natural pruning by means of a thicket is 

 neither expensive nor laborious. The positive advantages, too, 

 resulting from a thicket are manifold, such as the destruction of 

 grass, heather, and weeds, the exclusion of the sun and the wind ; 

 but passing by such as these, our attention must be confined to 

 three only in this connection. These three advantages are — (1) the 

 promotion of upward growth and the growth of the stems {draiving 

 up), (2) the atrophy and destruction of the lower branches (natural 

 joruninfj), and (3) the overshadowing and extinction of the weaker 

 individuals among the surplus trees {natural thinning). 



Dixnoing up produces tall and straight trees, and promotes the 

 growth of their stems. There is perhaps a danger that in some 

 cases trees may be draicn up too much, and that their stems may 

 become too long for their strength and girth. But this danger may 

 be guarded against with ordinary precaution ; and in the case of 

 plantations, in which tlie trees have been started at three feet apart 

 or more, it cannot well occur before twenty years after planting. 

 This danger has in all probability been too mucli feared in Britain, 

 until it has become an actual bugbear. Anyhow, many foresters 

 plant too widely apart and thin too severely — Incidit in Scgllam 

 qui vidt vitare ChanjMin. 



Natural pruning by atrophy of lower branches is economical in 

 every respect, and when it is caused to commence at an early age, 

 it IS more effectual than any sharp instrument in giving trees a 

 desirable form and habit of growth. Where young trees are about 

 three feet apart, all the lower branches, as soon as they come to be 

 about two feet long or even less, begin to suffer from contact with 

 neighbouring ones, and to be kept in check. Then, when the 

 branches above join and quite intercept the sunlight, these lower 

 branches wither and die, most of them before they have attained 

 the thickness of a quarter-inch. Thus in a young thicket the 

 lower branches are so small when they wither that they do not 

 create appreciable faults in the timber. 



Finally, a few remarks may be made about natural thinning, 

 which is the third advantage to be considered here. In a thicket 

 the trees are crowded, and they cannot all continue to develop 

 themselves and survive. Some trees will be outstripped in the 

 race and deprived of their indispensable sunlight. These will 

 wither up like tlie lower branches of all the other trees and be 



