34 Home woods 



home attribute it to loss of health, whereas they are 

 merely throwing off tired branches for which they have 

 no further need. In nearly all forest trees, and Pines 

 more than any, it is a distinct gain in beauty to show 

 the stem. The trees escape the wind, and do not suffer 

 from exposure or from being set on grass, which during 

 summer or light rainfall takes all the moisture. They 

 shelter each other, and the mast-like stems are sufficient 

 to uphold them in any storm. What is the remedy for 

 the mistake so often made in planting Pines ? Certainly 

 grouping the trees closer together, and so gaining those 

 stately columns, good effect, and timber. If there is not 

 room enough to group each kind separately, that is 

 no reason why different Pines should not be grouped 

 together. 



False distinctions. Much of the time and energy of 

 writers is wasted in the attempt to draw distinctions 

 where none exist, ranging from the abysmal profundities 

 of Kant to the last issue of some pubHcation dealing 

 with the simple facts of country life. Attempts are made 

 to set up distinctions in kind where it is only a question 

 of degree. We have the table hen and the exhibition 

 hen, which proved so distressing a bird to Sir Henry 

 Thompson ; we have men endeavouring to separate 

 garden from exhibition Roses ; critics who write of all 

 sorts of * schools ' in art instead of showing the harmony 

 with nature of all true work in art ; and now books of 

 woodcraft show the same tendency and, instead of being 

 simple and clear, use a jargon of German and bad English 

 as pedantic as possible. The tree growing by itself is 

 discussed on ' arboricultural principles ' ; trees growing 

 in a wood are discussed under another set of principles 

 called ' sylvicultural '. This and much like talk is very apt 



