66 PLANTING. 



may then be displaced in like manner. The increase of diameter of 

 the stem, is the only certain test for deciding whether the larger or 

 smaller number of branches may be pruned otf to most advantage, or 

 whether it maybe prudent to take any away from the stem until it attain 

 greater strength and thickness. By examining the trees of a plantation 

 annually, the critical time for pruning every branch for the best interest of 

 the trees is secured. Some trees may be pruned with great advantage 

 successively for years, whilst others may only require it every three or 

 five years, and others again not at all. 



It has been disputed whether resinous or non re-productive trees are 

 benefited by pruning ; but the value of judicious close pruning to that 

 tribe of trees cannot be doubted: at the same time it is but too true that, in 

 numerous instances, it has been carried to a mischievous excess. Young 

 firs and larch trees, when deprived of their lateral branches, to within four 

 or five tire of shoots of the top, are frequently seriously injured by the 

 winds acting on the tuft of branches, which become as a lever loosening the 

 roots, and producing all the evils of a suddenly checked growth, besides 

 those of excessive bleeding or loss of the resinous sap, and the want of 

 the periodical supply of nourishment to the stem afforded by these 

 branches. At sixteen years of growth, larches standing at four feet apart, 

 will be benefited by moderate pruning ; i. c., of two or three tire of the 

 lowermost branches, particularly should these appear to be decreasing; in 

 their former vigour of growth ; and afterwards in every third or fourth 

 year, successively, the like treatment should be adopted to these lowermost 

 branches evincing a decline of healthy growth. The same rule applies to 

 the pine or Scotch fir and the spruce ; but the former, having large and 

 compound branches, should be pruned at an earlier age than the latter, or 

 before the lateral shoots are more than two inches in diameter. When 

 the branch to be taken off is several inches in diameter, the wound is so 

 large, the excavation of resinous sap so great, and the heart-wood, or the 

 vessels which constitute it, so indura'ed, as to render the perfect union of 

 the new and the old wood less certain than in young branches, all which 

 make the removal of large branches productive of more evil than service t 

 the growth of the tree and quality of the timber. On the contrary, when 

 the pruning of the pine is altogether neglected, and the dead or rotten 

 stumps or snags of branches are left to be embedded in the wood, or to 

 form cavitic-s lor the accumulation of water or other extraneous matters 

 in the substance of the stem, all the purposes of profit and of pleasure aro 

 sacrificed to neglect or unskilful culture. 



Judicious thinning may be said to be productive of the same valuable 

 effects to a plantation of timber-trees in the aggregate, as those which 

 judicious pruning produces on every individual tree composing it : by the 

 admission of a proper circulation of air and the solar rays, and permitting 

 the free expansion of the essential lateral branches of the trees, as well as 

 by preventing an unnecessary waste or exhaustion of the soil by the roots 

 of all supernumerary tiees. 



The great advantages of judicious thinning are not confined to the 

 object of obtaining the largest quantity of timber of the best quality on a 

 given space of land in the shorl< of time; but the produce of the 



trees thus thinned out ought to all'ord a return sufficient to pay the ex- 

 penses of culture, interest ol' capital, and the value of the rent of the land. 

 Iu many instances the profits arising from the thinnings of well managed 

 woods have covered the.se charges before the period of twenty years from 

 the time of planting. The time at which the process of thinning should 

 be commenced, depends on the like causes as those which regulate pruning 1 , 

 and need not here be repeated. 



