254 ON PRUNING TIMBER TREES. 



found on any principle. Branches are loped off without limit or 

 caution, and thus the growth of the tree is injured, and wounds 

 formed upon its surface, which are never afterwards cicatrized. 

 Often in the case of the young trees, we see the entire branches of 

 successive years' growth loped off" in a season, and nothing left 

 but a bush at the top. By this system of mutilation, millions of 

 trees are sacrificed. A great proportion indeed of the whole 

 cultivated wood of the country is annually destroyed, and it 

 were better that the pruning knife were never used at all than thus 

 misapplied. The practice so common has probably been derived 

 from that of the garden ; but it is to be observed, that, in the 

 garden, the object of pruning is to repress the growth of the wood 

 and produce that of fruit ; and the principle therefore, is in no 

 degree applicable to the pruning required in the forest. 



The principal instruments to be employed in pruning are a 

 sharp knife, chisels with handles for reaching the higher branches, 

 and sometimes a small saw for the larger branches. The hatchet 

 is on no occasion to be used in pruning. The Indian saw ought 

 to be used, which is made to act by being pulled towards the ope- 

 rator, in place of being pushed away from him like the common 

 saw of Europe. By being fixed to a long handle, this instru- 

 ment is adapted to the cutting off the higher branches. 



When the proper direction has been given to the growth of 

 the tree, and the lower branches have been pruned to the height 

 to which it has been thought expedient to carry the operation, 

 art has done all that it can do to render the tree useful. The 

 natural growth of the tree must effect the rest. The trunk will 

 increase in diameter by the addition of concentric layers of wood, 

 yearly formed between the bark and the stem. The longer a 

 tree stands while in a growing state, the thicker will its trunk 

 become, and the more valuable. It makes wood rapidly to use 

 a familiar expression, when the trunk has become of a good size : 

 and it is an error, therefore, to fell wood which is intended for 

 timber too soon. 



In the pruning of forest trees, one of the most frequent errors 

 committed is to delay the process till too late. By this delay the 

 form of the tree is rendered such that it cannot be restored ; and 

 the loping off of large branches in the manner often practised, in 

 order to give the tree a better shape, is for the most part at- 

 tended with the evil of disfiguring it more, and enfeebling its 

 growth. We constantly see those mistaken attempts to repair 



