FUTAIE, OR FULL-GROWTH SYSTEM. 367 



is approaching to maturity, the original processes already de- 

 scribed are repeated ; and as, in different parts of an extensive 

 forest, tliey would take place at different times in different zones, 

 it would afford indefinitely an annual crop of small wood, fuel 

 and timber. 



The duties of the forester do not end here, for it sometimes 

 happens that the glades left by felling the older trees are not 

 sufficiently seeded, or that the species, or essences, as the French 

 oddly call them, are not duly proportioned in the new crop. In 

 this case, seed must be artificially sown, or young trees planted 

 in the vacancies. Besides this, all trees, whether grown for fruit, 

 for fuel, or for timber, require more or less training in order to 

 yield the best returns. The experiments of the Yicomte de 

 Courval in sylviculture throw much hght 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 compels 

 the tree to develop the stem, by reducing the lateral ramification. 

 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 



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, RechercJies swr I'emploi de divers amendements, etc., 

 Paris, 1853, and Koderle, Orundsdtze der Kunstlichen Dungung im Fontculr 

 turicesen. 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 

 results followed the planting of vines and trees in holes half filled with frag- 

 ments of plaster-castings and mortar from old buildings. Chevandier'a 

 experiments 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." Eccles. ii. 6. 



