PLANTING. 



Number 



Fig. 10. 



When there is a deficiency of access to certain parts of the plantation, 

 and additional rides or drives must be made, the lines should be marked 

 out by barking the trees in the course of it, or, what is better, by a circular 

 mark with whitewash or lime. The roots should be grubbed up, and the 

 surface of the ground prepared and sown with the seeds mentioned in 

 Chapter V. When there are steeps or hills, the drives should be formed 

 with the most easy ascent for the convenience of timber carts. The ascent 

 ought not to be greater than one foot in thirty. The most useful instru- 

 ment for determining the ascent or descent of forest drives, is constructed 

 in the form of the common level, furnished with an index divided into 

 ninety degrees. When the plummet line hangs at the forty-fifth degree, 



the legs of the instrument indicate a perfect 

 level {fig. 10), and when it hangs at a lesser 

 or greater number, it indicates the degree of 

 ascent or descent accordingly. In plantations 

 the thinning of which has been neglected, the 

 trees next the sides ofthe drives are always the 

 largest and most valuable, and afford a test at 

 all times to judge how far judicious thinning 

 has been practised or neglected. When this 

 V, essential part of culture has been neglected, 

 the greatest caution is necessary in perform- 

 ing the work. The trees being grown up slender, weak, and deficient of 

 side branches, a too sudden exposure to the winds or currents of air, will 

 be found injurious, if not fatal. The outside trees should be continued in 

 their thicket state for several years after the first relief is given to the 

 interior trees, and even then should only be deprived of decaying com- 

 panions, or of branches unnecessary for the purposes of shelter, but 

 which it may be advantageous for the trees to lose. Trees weakened by 

 growing in a crowded state, become more obnoxious to disease, and to 

 the attacks of insects, and to that of parasitic plants, such as mosses 

 and lichens, which rarely or never appear on healthy and vigorous trees. 

 The number of trees to be taken out on the first occasion ofthe thin- 

 ning of a neglected plantation should be very limited, and confined 

 to those which have become the most exhausted. The process should 

 be carried on for six or seven years, until completed. The pruning 

 of such trees should be confined to the removal of decaying or dead 

 branches, until the gradual introduction of fresh air, and the solar rays by 

 the thinning process has renewed lateral shoots and invigorated the 

 branches*. Forest-trees are., like other organized bodies, confined to a. 



* It is a great error to suppose, that by leaving trees in an individually crowded state, 

 the object of a close cover is secured ; on the contrary, this object will only be gained fo 



