THE NEW FORESTRY. l6/ 



till the trees have met and quite covered the ground, grown, 

 say, to a height of from twenty to twenty-five feet, and 

 become crowded. The guide in thinning should then be 

 first, to preserve, in regular distribution, the species intended 

 for the main crop ; and, second, to preserve an unbroken over- 

 head canopy of branches in every part of the plantation, while, 

 at the same time, every tree left should have its head and 

 shoulders clear up to the light. By " head and shoulders " 

 the woodman will understand is meant the leading shoot and 

 two or three tiers of branches below that. In a tree twenty 

 feet high, for example, the head and shoulders may represent 

 about five feet, or a quarter of the tree's total height. This 

 is ample, at this early stage, to sustain healthy growth, for it 

 must be remembered that the trees will still, at this stage, be 

 furnished with live branches more or less down to the ground ; 

 and, although these may interlace and be crowded, sufficient 

 light will still filter down to keep them alive as long as they 

 are wanted. The fear of not giving the tree sufficient room 

 is the bugbear that haunts the forester accustomed to severe 

 methods of thinning. There is, however, no danger what- 

 ever, especially in healthy growing young plantations, because 

 should the thinner err on the side of leaving too small a top, 

 the tree will right itself in a couple of years or so. On the 

 Continent great tracts of forest are to be seen of Scotch fir, 

 spruce and beech, etc., in which the trees are one hundred and 

 twenty feet high and upwards, and of proportionate girth, 

 that never had more than a tuft of branches at their top from 

 first to last. Plate No. 3 and frontispiece represents mature 

 forest of splendid timber of this description, and it may be 

 explained here that the spray seen between the firs (No. 3)* 

 and below their tops is not composed of dead snags left on the 

 firs, but is from the beech trees sixty feet high growing in the 

 dense shade. Whether, therefore, the thinner is dealing with 

 a conifera or hard-wood plantation, he will find the above rule 

 a safe one to go by. In pure woods, or woods composed of 

 a few species of similar habit, he will not have much difficulty 

 in thinning, but in indiscriminate mixtures of any species, such 

 as are often found on estates, he will have trouble if the 

 number of species has to be preserved in any proportion. In 

 such a case he must make up his mind to one of two courses. 

 Either he must give up the ground to the stronger growing 

 species and sacrifice the weaker as they get overtopped, or he 



* Plate 14 represents an accidental example of a Scotch wood very much 

 resembling a German forest, and which has not been too severely thinned. 



