CHAPTER III 



THINNINGS AND PRUNING 



It has been indicated in the chapter on " Struggle for 

 Existence " that in the early stages of a forest crop the 

 young plants, whether seedlings, coppice-shoots, or root- 

 suckers, first send leading shoots, then develop branches 

 and form crowns, which expand as the young tree grows 

 in height, until they meet the crowns of their neighbours. 

 The component young trees of the crop then begin to 

 struggle among themselves for room to develop, while 

 they race up to the light, and soon they resolve them- 

 selves into dominant, dominated, and suppressed, to 

 which, in time, may be added the dead. Thus there 

 are at first a great many more stems on a given area 

 than will ultimately be the case when the crop becomes 

 exploitable. But if those which ultimately have won 

 the victory are permitted to work their own salvation, 

 they do it at the sacrifice of their own vitality and 

 strength ; the trees are apt to grow lanky, with com- 

 pressed crowns, and they will not have attained the same 

 dimensions as they would have done had those been 

 got rid of earlier which they gradually mastered. The 

 dominated and suppressed trees themselves were pre- 

 cluded from making much growth, but by their presence, 

 both in the leaf-canopy and in the soil, they took up 

 some of the precious room which was needed for the full 

 development of the dominant trees. It is in regulating 

 this struggle for existence, and in providing sufficient 

 growing room for those which it is intended to retain in 



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