44 



words, is this : " Nor is it necessary to 

 " exercise the knife much^ or lop a sin- 

 ** gle branch by the bole, unless decay- 

 " ed, or broke by accident ; all that is 

 " necessary' (the reader will mark the ex- 

 pression,) " is shortening strong branches, 

 " such as in any considerable degree 

 " seem to cope with the stem. And this 

 " must be persevered in, so long as the 

 " intention is to produce straight timber^/* 

 He does not use the word clean, and 

 there seems peculiar propriety in the 

 omission, as the method he has pointed 

 out, though tedious in the extreme, would 

 never teach us how to produce a foot of 

 the article ; and, as to length of stem, we 

 find no instructions how to obtain so de^ 

 sirable a property, except shortening the 

 branches, and then leaving them to 

 " decay,, rot, and drop off," deserves the 

 name. 



