414 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISII ARBOUICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



for many purposes, reduces tlie value of the timber, besides 

 pre-disposing it to ring-shake. "Where practicable, the best means 

 which can be employed to attain the desirable closeness in the 

 early stages of the life-history of a wood or forest are to be found 

 in well-arranged systems of natural regeneration, or in artificial 

 sowing. The much greater expense inseparable from the operation 

 of stocking the ground as closely by planting as can be done by 

 natural or artificial seeding can never allow the former to be 

 carried out with much hope of a profitable return. Perhaps it 

 need hardly be said that more careful attention must be given 

 in its earlier stages to a naturally renewed wood than to one 

 artificially planted, or otherwise the closeness which is so desir- 

 able in many ways may prove to be a soui-ce of great dangei-. 

 Thinning must begin earlier and be oftener repeated in a wood 

 raised from seed, and if the process is to be properly conducted, 

 a higher standai-d of excellency is demanded of the woi-kmen. 

 To show the great amount of attention and care bestowed u])on 

 the preservation of closeness in young woods, it may be mentioned 

 that in many parts of the Continent it is a common practice to 

 remove rings of bark from the trees which are destined soon 

 to be thinned out, so that they may very gradually die off 

 and thus allow the neighbouring trees to close-in on each other 

 before the actual separation of the former from the ground. In 

 this way the shading of the ground, as well as that of the young 

 stems, is maintained as completely as is possible without unduly 

 retarding the process of thinning. 



"Where regeneration by natural or artificial sowing is by any 

 means prevented, the quality of the timber suffers, not only in 

 the earlier but also in the later years of the life-history of a wood. 

 In this country one finds, generally speaking, little to complain 

 of as regards the closeness of plantations during the middle 

 period of their existence. After this, however, the state of 

 things is usually very unsatisfactory, for storms and the hand of 

 man have been busily at work interrupting the leafy canopy, so 

 that great gaps become very common ; indeed it is nothing 

 unusual to find the trees standing so far apart from each other 

 that neither the boles nor the ground are proj^erly shaded. The 

 (puility of the annual increments of wood is thus reduced, and 

 great loss of soil-fertility and moisture must result. In addition 

 to these drawbacks, the surface is probably not even half stocked 

 with trees, and consequently cannot be yielding half the rent of 



