378 FUTAIE, OR FULL-GROWTH SYSTEM. 
order to yield the best returns. The experiments of the Vicomte 
de Courval in sylviculture throw much light on this subject, and 
show, in a most interesting way, the importance of pruning 
forest-trees. The principal feature of De Courval’s very suc- 
cessful method is a systematical mode of trimming which com- 
pels the tree to develop the stem, by reducing the lateral rami- 
fication. Beginning with young trees, the buds are rubbed off 
from the stems, and superfluous lateral shoots are pruned down 
to the trunk. When large trees are taken in hand, branches 
which can be spared, and whose removal is necessary to obtain 
a proper length of stem, are very smoothly cut off quite close 
the earth is kept sufficiently moist by infiltration from running brooks.— 
Comptes Rendus a ? Académie des Sciences, t. xix., Juillet, Déc., 1844, p. 167. 
The effect of accidental irrigation is well shown in the growth of the trees 
planted along the canals of irrigation which traverse the fields in many parts 
of Italy. They flourish most luxuriantly, in spite of continual lopping, and 
yield a very important contribution to the stock of fuel for domestic use ; 
while trees, situated so far from canals as to be out of the reach of infiltration 
from them, are ef much slower growth, under circumstances otherwise equally 
favorable. 
In other experiments of Chevandier, under better conditions, the yield of 
wood was increased, by judicious irrigation, in the ratio of seven to one, the 
profits in that of twelve to one. At the Exposition of 1855, Chambrelent 
exhibited young trees, which, in four years from the seed, had grown to the 
height of sixteen and twenty feet, and the circumference of ten and twelve 
inches. Chevandier experimented with various manures, and found that 
some of them might be profitably applied to young but not to old trees, the 
quantity required in the latter case being too great. Wood-ashes and the 
refuse of soda factories are particularly recommended, See, on the manuring 
of trees, CHEVANDIER, Jvecherches sur Vemploi de divers amendements, etc., 
Paris, 1852, and KopERLE, Grundséilze der Kitnstlichen Dingung im FPorstcul- 
turwesen. Wien, 1865. 
I have seen an extraordinary growth produced in fir-trees by the application 
of soapsuds; in a young and sickly cherry-tree, by heaping the chips and 
dust from a marble-quarry, to the height of two or three feet, over the roots 
and around the stem; and cases have come to my knowledge where like 
resulis followed the planting of vines and trees in holes half filled with frag- 
ments of plaster-castings, and mortar from old buildings. Chevandier’s experi- 
ments in the irrigation of the forest would not have been a ‘‘ new thing under 
the sun” to wise King Solomon, for that monarch says: ‘‘I made me pools of 
water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees.” Hccles. ii. 6, 
¢. 
