I lO THE LAECH. 



game, &c., has necessitated closer planting, an early- 

 thinning, say at three or four years, should be adopted, 

 and the crop reduced to the above number. 



Thinning for timber should not be continued after the 

 trees are about thirty years old, and the crop, accord- 

 ing to description, cut down at fifty, sixty, seventy, 

 or eighty years. 



The crop to stand as timber at thirty years of age 

 should not exceed 300 trees per acre upon good deep 

 soil, and between 250 and 200 upon poorer soil. 

 It is not essential, as has already been shown, in order 

 to secure a proper crop, that the trees be either per- 

 fectly regular as to distance or of equal size, but in 

 thinning this should be aimed at as desirable. A tree 

 approaching maturity, having stood till its trunk is 

 well-nigh cleared of branches to the proper height, 

 may, in its present condition, stand a longer or shorter 

 time, according as it is healthy and making wood or 

 otherwise. 



The layers or zones of wood should be about Jth of 

 an inch thick till forty years old, Jth till fifty, y\j-th 

 till sixty, and ^V^h till seventy or eighty years. 



The form of a larch tree, grown for large timber, 

 should be conical till nearly forty years old, and its 

 girth in inches, a little above ground, should correspond 

 to its feet in height. Say at forty years old it girths 

 fifty inches, at same time it should stand fifty feet in 

 height ; at sixty years old, its girth at ten feet from 

 the ground in inches should be equal to its height in 

 feet ; and at twenty feet from the ground, when seventy 



