112 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
The plantation is allowed to grow on in a thick, almost 
impenetrable mass, till from twenty-five to thirty years of age, 
when the first thinning takes place. By this time large numbers 
of the young trees have died, but there are still as many left as 
we foresters of Scotland put into the ground to begin with. In 
this first thinning all dead plants are removed, and as many of 
the weakest of the living as are required to allow just a little 
light to percolate through. There is sometimes another mode 
adopted in the first thinning, viz., the entire removal of every 
alternate line, which, we would say, has at least one recommend 
ation over the other—namely, that of facilitating the clearing out 
of the thinnings, which are dragged to the nearest road along the 
lines on which they grew. 
The appearance presented by a piece of woodland just after the 
first thinning suggests a forest of fishing-rods with tufts of green 
branchlets at their apices. I here ventured the remark to one 
of the officials, who understood and spoke a little English, that a 
heavy fall of snow such as they have—and three feet deep on the 
ground at a time is not uncommon—must be apt to bend and 
break these slender stems. I was told, in reply, that their very 
closeness on the ground was their safety, because the one could 
not get down for the other. 
The best of these thinnings are used for fencing in the rural 
districts, and, although slender, they last, it is said, from ten to 
fifteen years. The second thinning is made six to eight years 
later, and is carefully performed. The tallest and best trees are 
always left as nearly equidistant as possible, and there is thus 
maintained a damp, dark, and stagnant atmosphere beneath their 
living heads, which prevents lateral branches from developing to 
any size, and encourages the process of decay and dropping off the 
stem to follow the growth upwards. By this means a bole tall 
and clear of large knots is secured. 
Light subsequent thinnings are taken every ten to fifteen 
years up to the age of ninety, after which no further cutting 
takes place till the crop is completely removed, at the age of a 
hundred years or more, in the manner already described. 
This mode of culture has been practised for many generations 
on the same ground, with the same variety of tree—Norway 
spruce—but in different parts of the forest natural reproduction 
has been adopted, and there is ample evidence that the freedom 
from herbage of the lately cleared ground admits readily of the 
