TENDING OF WOODS 79 



Sometimes, especially in woods at present from thirty to 

 fifty years old, where oak has been grown with larch nurses, 

 it is necessary to cut out all the larch, which are often of large 

 size, for the sake of the oak. In such an operation a very 

 large proportion of the volume of the standing crop is 

 removed. After the cutting has been made the woods are 

 usually very open and have to be underplanted. Such 

 a cutting is no longer a thinning in the correct sense of the 

 word, but is a partial clearance of the crop. 



Unfortunately the method of thinning practised in most 

 British woods up to a recent date has been incorrect, and the 

 result is that nearly all existing woods have been very largely 

 over-thinned. This has resulted in the standing crop being 

 of far less value than it should have been ; the trees, being 

 far apart, have large branching crowns and short stems. 

 There has been too much rule-of-thumb about the method. 

 An ordinary rule was to thin the trees till they stood at one- 

 third of their height apart. This means that a larch wood 

 sixty feet high would contain only 109 trees per acre, instead 

 of about 400, while the shade-bearing Douglas fir would be 

 given the same, or possibly more, space than the light- 

 demanding larch, which is not only unnecessary, but causes 

 the formation of very knotty timber. Again, very often when 

 timber was required for estate purposes, or to fetch in an 

 increased revenue, the tallest and best trees were cut, leaving 

 the dominated and suppressed trees to form the crop. This 

 is a ruinous procedure, as trees once suppressed very seldom 

 recover, and the final crop consists of poor badly-grown trees. 



It is largely owing to this over-thinning and early removal 

 of the best trees that many of our woods are in such a poor 

 state, and that foreign timber is preferred to British. If the 

 owner requires an extra revenue, it is far better to clear cut 

 an area large enough to bring in the required amount, than to 

 over-thin the whole wood. 



Thinning is the most important operation carried out in 



