380 REARING AND MANAGEMENT OF HARDWOOD PLANTATIONS. 
allowed too much room, they will, owing to their elevated position 
and the influence of other external agencies, form flat tops and 
probably dwarfed stems, 
In after years thinning may be resorted to whenever it is found 
that the nurses are encroaching on the standards. It will some- 
times be found necessary to give trees which have attained to a 
proper and compact form more room than they received on pre- 
vious thinnings, so that they may be enabled to form shapely and 
widespread tops. It would, for instance, interfere considerably 
with the scenic effect of a plantation if bare limbs or parts of the 
trunks of some trees appeared above the tops of the others. After 
all the nurses have been removed, the plantation should stretch 
out before the eye in every direction, presenting an undulating- 
like surface of many colours—natural in all its aspects, and with 
nothing to mar the beauty of the picture. 
At what period of the plantation’s growth all the nurses will 
be removed, depends entirely on the progress the plantation has 
made ; but it may be taken for granted, at least in most cases, 
that the standards will derive little or no benefit from the nurses 
after the twentieth or twenty-fifth year. 
In felling the nurse trees, great care should be taken not to 
damage the standards. In order to successfully accomplish this, 
it will, in most cases, be found necessary to divest them of their 
branches before they are felled. This process is known to prac- 
tical men under the name of “lopping.” As many of the trees 
in question as possible should be carried out by men, because it is 
often highly injurious to the roots of the standards to employ 
horses for the purpose of dragging them out. 
It is absolutely impossible to lay down a definite scale as to the 
distances which should separate the permanent standards. From 
20 to 30 feet is the general thing counted upon; but altitude, 
exposure, and other matters have, of course, a vast deal to do with 
this. With the exception of taking out really bad trees, regu- 
larity should certainly receive special attention. 
In cases where some consideration is given to the rearing of 
game, all indigenous undergrowth should be encouraged. By 
repeatedly cutting back such species as briers, hazel, and black- 
thorn, a thick and vigorous growth will be the result. The sides 
of rides and other conspicuous points throughout the plantation, 
should be filled in with laurels, rhododendrons, cotoneasters, 
barberry, yew, box, privet, and mahonia. By fixing down the 
