THINNING AND PRUNING 129 



forester, whom they had known in their old homes, and 

 whose sons and acquaintances were forthwith imported to 

 teach the southerner how to . plant, thin, and all the 

 rest. 



Scotch forestry differs to a considerable extent from 

 English wood management, as most people are aware. Apart 

 from national characteristics, however, Scotch foresters for 

 the best part of a century had been largely devoting them- 

 selves to the cultivation of a tree which differs from a good 

 many in its habits and requirements. For many years larch 

 was looked upon in Scotland in much the same light as oak 

 had been regarded in England at an earlier date. The Duke 

 of Atholl, who did so much towards establishing the reputa- 

 tion of this tree, was a firm believer in wide planting and 

 free thinning, and very probably this introduced the system 

 of free thinning which Scotch foresters have applied to all 

 species, more or less indiscriminately, according to the ideas 

 of the thinner. No sooner had a plantation closed up its 

 ranks and commenced that process of stem cleaning by 

 suppression of side branches, than the opinion of three- 

 fourths of the orthodox Scotch foresters in the country 

 was that it required thinning. The idea, of course, was 

 that an ideal plantation should consist of nothing but well- 

 developed trees, and that the existence of weakly or partly 

 suppressed individuals was an error in cultivation. Timber, 

 in fact, was grown by the tree and not by the acre, and the 

 process of natural selection was replaced by the axe and 

 pruning saw. Probably the damage so often done by gales 

 on the exposed sites and shallow soils of the north had a 

 great deal to do with the fostering of this idea. Trees 

 drawn up in a thick wood suffered terribly when once the 

 wind made gaps in them, and quite possibly the large pro- 

 portion of strong well - developed individual trees which 

 free thinning produced, decreased to some extent the damage 

 arising from this source. Then, again, larch and Scotch fir, 

 which formed the bulk of Scotch plantations then, as they 

 do now, were largely used for purposes for which cleanliness 

 of growth and high quality were not of paramount import- 

 ance, while the various uses to which larch of all sizes is 

 put was a great temptation to thin early and freely. Both 

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