44 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



save in really favourable conditions; ill-considered operations 

 may be altogether harmful in dry, superficial and poor soils. 

 Still these experiments are rather upsetting to one's ideas, more 

 particularly in the matter of height-growth. 



It may be that views about thinning are changing a little — 

 in the direction of marking more freely. Even in the French 

 school this is possible, for we find M. Parde, a well-known forest 

 officer, describing thinning in the forest of Hez Froidmont — and 

 this a beech (with oak) forest, too — as follows : — " In the cleanings 

 and thinnings the beech, and especially the promising oaks, are 

 thoroughly freed {fortement degages). It is not rare for the 

 thinnings in woods of about 50 years old to produce 50 steres 

 {i.e. 1766 cubic feet) to the hectare (2'47 acres). Sometimes these 

 woods look a little open after the operation, but the canopy 

 soon closes, and the stems of the future, receiving air and light 

 in sufficient quantity, develop with vigour." All that might 

 happen and yet the operation might be wrong, for what we want 

 is the maximum of wood production per acre, and not per 

 individual stem ; but it is curious to find a Frenchman quoting 

 the above example with approval, apparently, when Boppe's 

 definition of a good thinning, in conditions such as these, is one 

 in which the after-appearance of the wood is not, to the casual 

 observer, appreciably different to what it was before the operation. 

 It is to be hoped these ideas may not be run away with and 

 carry people too far. Only sample plots, observed for a long 

 period of years, can really decide this most urgent matter. 

 Could not the Royal Scottish Arboricultural Society start a 

 Research Station for Scotland, and the Royal English Arbori- 

 cultural Society one for England ? There are endless questions 

 of the utmost importance which can only be settled by scientific, 

 and especially permanent, bodies. 



IV. M. Jolyet continues his observations on the hardiness of 

 certain species, more especially conifers. He remarks that it is 

 the exceptional winters and summers one must consider, not the 

 normal, and as the type of exceptional winter he takes 1879-80. 

 I myself remember that, in that year near Nancy, the ther- 

 mometer went down to - 14° F.; there was skating for six 

 weeks ; the temperature during December was only above 

 freezing for half an hour on one day ; water froze 4 inches in a 

 night ; and the plane trees in the public park of Nancy split 

 with reports like pistol shots. For the type of exceptional 



