THE NEW FORESTRY. 45 



to be aimed at by the forester in the act of thinning, is the 

 regulating of the trees in a plantation to such a distance, one 

 from another, and that in such a manner as is known to be 

 favourable to ..the health of each tree individually, as well as 

 to the general welfare of the whole plantation. In order to 



frow any plant to that size which the species to which it 

 elongs is known to attain under favourable circumstances, it 

 is necessary that it have space of ground and air for the spread 

 of its roots and branches in proportion to its size at any given 

 stage of its growth. Upon this the whole nature and inten- 

 tion of thinning plantations rest." As a non-committal 

 exposition of principles the foregoing would be hard to beat ; 

 but elsewhere, in the same chapter, these principles are over- 

 ruled by quite another set of conditions, occupying about forty 

 pages. Under eleven separate sections he distinguished 

 between thinning plantations on all woodlands and on pro- 

 perties ; between thinning plantations on extensive properties 

 and on small properties ; between oak plantations and 

 hard-wood plantations ; between pine, larch and fir plantations 

 and pine plantations ; and between fir plantations 

 and larch plantations ; confusing and complicating in 

 purely fanciful distinctions a practice in which the same general 

 rule applies under all circumstances. 



Trees, not timber, was what Brown was apparently thinking 

 of. He assumed that the biggest tree, trunk and limbs, was 

 the best, and that the tree that was allowed ample space in 

 every way to develop to its fullest extent attained to the 

 greatest size in the shortest time, and secured the desired end. 

 This argument, applied in principle to plantation culture, 

 necessarily leads to thin planting, wrong mixtures, early and 

 frequent thinnings, and free lateral growth in the trees left; 

 but, so far as the production of timber is concerned, either as 

 regards quantity or quality, the reasoning is quite fallacious. 

 It is true that trees grown as described do, individually, 

 increase in bulk, including branches, more quickly than they 

 do when crowded together ; but it is equally certain, first, that 

 fir trees, so grown, owing to excessive branch development, 

 are too rough and tapering to yield good stems of useful 

 dimensions ; and that broad-leaved trees are spent in the pro- 

 duction of far too great a proportion of small top wood of little 

 or no value, instead of in trunk volume ; and, second, that such 

 trees produce the least quantity of timber to the acre because 

 they take up more room, proportionately, than several trees of 

 lesser size and better quality would occupy grown closely 

 together. 



