PLANTING. 



61 



executed, there will be few failures. When these happen, however, the 

 vacancies must be filled up, at the proper season, with stout plants, and 

 the holes be properly prepared for the reception of the roots. It is a good 

 practice for the first two or three years of a trenched plantation to take a 

 crop of potatoes, mangel wurzel, or carrots, according to circumstances. 

 The rule, which must be strictly adhered to in the introduction of these 

 crops, is, that no part of the foliage or tops of the green crop touch or even 

 approximate near to the young trees ; a rule of practice which, if broken 

 through, produces effual damage as from a rampant crop of weeds to 

 the plantation. 



Second. There are three different kinds or modes of pruning, which, in 

 practice, have been named close pruning {a, fig. 1 1). Snag pruning (6), and 

 foreshortening (c). 



Fi 9- 11. By leaving a snag (6) of the branch, it in 



time forms a blemish in the timber, in con- 

 sequence of young wood forming round the 

 stump, and embedding it in the tree. Snag 

 pruning is the most rude and injudicious 

 mode that can be practised, being invariably 

 attended with injury to the quality of the 

 timber: it should never be adopted under 

 any circumstances whatever. Close pruning 

 (a) is performed by sawing or cutting off a 

 branch close to its parent stem or primary 

 leading branch (c). This is the only mode 

 to be adopted in training, or rather improving-, the stem or bole of a tree, 

 or wherever it is desirable that no reproduction of branches from the point 

 should follow. The most perfect manner of executing the work is to saw 

 the branch off close to the parent stem, and smooth any roughness that 

 may be left on the surface of the wound with a sharp knife, taking care 

 not to reduce the edges of the bark which surround the wound more than 

 is actually necessary to remove the lacerated surface. To prevent the 

 action of air and moisture on the naked wood, a dressing should be applied, 

 composed of ingredients that will adhere to the spot, and resist the action 

 of drought and rain. Three parts of cow-dung and one of sifted lime will 

 be found a very effective substitute for the more compound dressing of 

 Forsyth. The dressing should be laid on one-quarter of an inch in 

 thickness, or more when the wound is large : when rendered smooth and 

 firmly pressed to the part, powdered lime should be thrown over the sur- 

 face, and pressed into it by the flat side of the pruning knife, or a spatula. 

 The bark will sooner cover the wound when protected from the influence 

 of the weather by this or by any similar means, than when left naked and 

 exposed*. 



In general forest pruning this process is unnecessary, or rather the 

 benefit is not sufficiently great to warrant its cost; but for particular trees 

 connected with ornamental effects it is well worth the trouble. 



Fore-shortening pruning (c) is the only one that can be usefully practised 



* The fate of Mr. Forsyth' s discovery of a composition applied to heal the wounds of 

 trees, and to renovate decaying vital functions of vegetable growth, is similar to that of 

 all other discoveries where the principles of such are pushed too far. Hence, one party 

 ridicules it as good for nothing, and another pronounces it as infallible ; while the truth 

 lies between. In a long practice the writer of this has always used it with beneficial 

 effects in every case where it was more than usually desired to have the bark speedily 

 closed over a wound in a tree, but for the ordinary cases of forest-tree pruning it has never 

 been used, and for the reasons before stated. 



