14 The Journal of Forestry. 



importance for the activity of the forester during summer is idtliin 

 the, wood, and were this better understood and attended to, much of 

 the work^remaining to be done during winter, and for which additional 

 hands are required in many instances, would be vastly diminished, if 

 not entirely dispensed with, and a more healthy mass of wood be 

 found upon many an estate. 



In the summer treatment of young plantations, say of any age under 

 twenty years or thereby, there should be a very careful and elaborate 

 examination'of every individual tree, keeping well in view the ultimate 

 object and intentions of the planter when the trees were first placed in 

 the situation. The cutting over of many weak, straggling saplings, which^ 

 while they will never become trees themselves, merely serve to with- 

 draw air, light, afid soil nourishment from their healthier neighbours, 

 will be more easily done at this period of the year than if left till the 

 usual time of winter or spring thinning, i^gain, while the heavy foliage 

 of summer clothes the larger branches and stems with rich luxuriance, 

 it is then, more than at any other time, that the intelligent eye of tlie 

 forester detects the " contiguity of shade " in some strong-growing 

 liead, or side limb rushing athwart his fellows, and by his wider 

 expanse obstructing so much light, and casting such a dark shadow 

 over them,'"that they have not the opportunity even of absorbing the 

 lio-ht of the sun's rays on their leaf surfaces, or of exhaling in freedom 

 from their shaded and darkened condition, — two functions most im- 

 portant to the healthy performance of leaf-action and its consequent 

 utility in the economy of the tree. 



In what is now recommended, it may be perhaps necessary to guard 

 our remarks against some objections which might with propriety be ad- 

 vanced against them, if we are supposed to be advocating a general and 

 thorough summer pruning of all trees indiscriminately. The pruning, 

 as we have chosen to call it, is rather the removal when in a very young 

 state of all rival leaders and incipient arms and branches, whether 

 in the main or lateral shoots. It is to be done progressively, and so 

 carefully must the operation be carried out, that it ought to be rather 

 called a system of training than of pruning, and it will be found to 

 be more beneficial to the tree in the long run, than any loss it may 

 sustain by the removal of so limited a portion of its leaves. Many 

 phytologists would shudder at the mere suggestion of the removal of 

 leaves from any plant while they are in a condition to perform their 

 natural functions, and it may appear that our plan infringes upon this 

 most vital principle of nature, and no doubt to some extent this is 

 true, but then those left are better exposed during the most important 

 season of the leaf-action to absorb light and air, and are consequently 

 able to perform their functions in a more complete manner. Moreover, 

 it must be borne in mind that trees, in an overcrowded young planta- 



