46 THE NEW FORESTRY. 



The proofs of Brown's practice are scattered throughout 

 " The Forester." Whenever we have been consulted by 

 owners of woods we have been met by Brown's teachings on 

 the subject of thinning and nursing, both inimical to good 

 forestry. The opinion is almost universal among owners of 

 woods that as soon as a plantation gets crowded it is going to 

 ruin, whereas it is just in the condition it should be. Brown's 

 advice, as regards planting generally, is, that in high-lying 

 exposed situations, three-and-a-half feet should be allowed 

 between the plants, and in sheltered spots, four to five feet. 

 " On low-lying and naturally sheltered parts of the country," 

 he recommends hard-woods to be planted five yards apart, the 

 space between to be made up with temporary nurses " to five 

 feet over all ; " and on exposed situations for pine and larch 

 from three-and-a-half to four feet This is thinning to begin 

 with (p. 454). At page 43 he congratulates British proprietors 

 on having recently adopted a mode of thinning on what he 

 calls " a regular systematic principle, by which the crops are 

 kept at all stages of their growth in a regular state, one tree 

 from another, and from this at all times in an equally healthy 

 condition, and never allowed to become crowded before 

 thinning." Writing (p. '571) on the "nature and necessity 

 of thinning plantations," he again urges that in rearing up a 

 plantation " principally for the sake of the value of timber, 

 etc.," that " the object should be to keep the branches of each 

 individual tree from interfering with those of its surrounding 

 neighbours and no more." At p. 573, advising "how to pro- 

 ceed systematically in regard to the thinning of plantations 

 in all woodlands," he writes, " on all the properties respecting 

 woods of which we have reported, we have invariably recom- 

 mended, as a means of improvement, that the several ages of 

 plantations should be divided into equal portions, and one 

 such portion should be periodically and systematically thinned 

 once in three, four, five or six years, according to the age 

 respectively." At p. 575, speaking of six hundred and thirty- 

 nine acres of trees of the respective ages of from forty-five to 

 sixty years, he writes, " the trees should have attained their 

 confirmed habit and should grow comparatively little in the 

 spread of their limbs." Clearly he is here thinking of trees 

 still retaining their earliest branches upon them. 



Brown did not originate the system of planting " nurses " 

 in young plantations, but he elaborated it to an extravagant 

 extent, and probably few practices have caused more loss to 

 proprietors than that of planting so many nurses, or indeed 



