62 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBOR ICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



and will, to a great extent, facilitate the work of transplanting, 

 especially with inexperienced workers. 



Frequent transplanting during the nursery stage, if properly 

 performed, will encourage fibrous roots. This, however, has 

 often the tendency to check growth till late in the season, with 

 the result that the young shoots get nipped with frost — especially 

 is this the case with Douglas fir and Sitka spruce. Destruction 

 from frost does not arise so much from the severity of our 

 winters as from the inability of some plants to ripen their wood 

 before the early frosts set in. 



Raising, and thus loosening, the roots of frost-tender plants in 

 the nursery lines during the autumn with a five-pronged fork, 

 and afterwards firmly treading the roots into the soil, will cause 

 a cessation of growth, when the young shoots will become 

 ripened off and ready for winter. 



In carrying out planting operations no effort should be spared 

 to encourage the trees to develop strong roots and to establish 

 canopy soon, so that the surface vegetation may be destroyed at 

 an early age. It is also to be observed that when this takes place 

 the rate of growth is considerably increased— growth in height 

 increases as each tree competes with its neighbour for space. 

 The trees are by this means drawn up tall, clean, and straight. 

 By the exclusion of light the lower branches are also killed off, 

 so that the timber produced will be clean and close grained. 



Nature, however, demands that a growing tree at all stages 

 of growth must have room for root ramification, and be possessed 

 of a certain number of live branches as feeders for the tree. 

 Therefore, if the crop is of uniform growth some artificial 

 assistance must be given in the way of thinning. 



In order to produce the best commercial timber, thinning 

 should commence just before the trees are deprived of their 

 necessary amount of live foliage, and before they become too 

 tall and slender in proportion to their girth. 



The work should be continued at close intervals, according to 

 the rate of growth and the requirements of each variety for the 

 development of its necessary foliage. 



This will bring about conditions which will cause the trees to 

 lose their side branches before they become large. Careful 

 attention to thinning will modify and balance growth so that 

 clean and close-grained timber will be produced. Proper 

 attention in thinning is a most important matter, and one more 



