102 THE LAECH. 



sum and amount paid or realised at sale, the plantation 

 or district of sale, the total number of trees, and 

 number of each species ; these and other details are 

 shown in an abstract form. 



It should also be mentioned that certain descrip- 

 tions of wood are neither sold directly by private 

 contract nor by auction sale, but sent to the estate 

 sawmill for manufacture ; and as this branch of busi- 

 ness is apt to mix, as it were, a wholesale and retail 

 trade tog^ether, it is better to charge all the wood, in 

 the first place, against the sawmill, show where it 

 grew and what it realised, with the manufactured 

 or other wood disposed of at the sawmill entered 

 in a special way against each department or respec- 

 tive party. 



The practice of deadwooding means simply to prune 

 off close by the trunk all dead or decaying stumps or 

 branches, especially in plantations about to be pastured 

 by sheep or cattle. 



Pruning of hardwood requires profound skill, sound 

 judgment, and a practical hand ; without such no one 

 should prune ; better far no pruning at all than such 

 as often meets and offends the eye in many places, not 

 to speak of the evils entailed upon the trees. 



Whins are, probably, next to rabbits, the greatest 

 evil foresters have to contend with ; and it cannot 

 be too strongly urged to keep them down till the 

 trees obtain the ascendancy over them, which they 

 generally do in four or five years. 



