THE FORMATION OF PLANTATIONS. 95 
weakened by injudicious thinning, we rarely find that winds do 
much damage in the way of uprooting, but that they have a great 
influence on the health and growth of the trees is a well-known 
fact. Indeed, in wind-swept situations we have only to notice the 
shape of individual trees that stand alone to ascertain from which 
direction the prevailing winds come. The windward side of such 
trees is rounded off as if trimmed with a knife, while the branches 
on the opposite side are longer and more vigorous. This is more 
especially noticeable near the sea, where the wind is laden with salt 
from the ocean, and which few trees can withstand with impunity. 
Seeing that the wind has so much effect on the growth of trees in 
exposed situations, it is evident that the smaller the surface 
presented to the wind the less will its influence be felt. To secure 
this desideratum, it is clear that we must follow to a certain extent 
the plan adopted in the case of shelter-belts, and by presenting a 
barrier to the prevailing wind endeavour to shelter the bulk of the 
plantation in somewhat the same way as the fields were sheltered 
in the former case. We notice that the trees on the extreme edge 
of a plantation exposed to strong winds are always the smallest 
and most stunted, in consequence of having to stand the full brunt 
of the blast. The second row back is less affected than the first, 
owing to the shelter afforded them by the latter, and we find them 
a foot or two higher, and with their tops leaning away from the 
wind, The next row presents a similar appearance, but taller 
than the second ; and so we find the trees gradually getting taller 
as we penetrate deeper into the wood. It is evident, from the 
inclined plane presented by the tops of the trees collectively, that 
the wind, when coming in contact with the edge of the plantation, 
is forced upwards until it reaches the average level of the tree-tops 
(where it meets with no opposition to its horizontal course), and 
only falls to its former level again when it has passed the limits of 
the plantation. To satisfy ourselves on this point we have only 
to stand on the leeward side of a wood in windy weather, and go 
long as we are under the shelter of the trees we feel little or 
nothing of the force of the wind, but the farther we retreat from 
the wood the more we experience its effects, until we get to such 
a distance from it as to render its sheltering influence altogether 
imperceptible. Such being the case then, it is evident that when 
once forced to the top of a mass of wood, the wind cannot again 
fall until an opening occurs in the wood itself, or it reaches the 
Open country. 
