142 ENGLISH ESTATE FORESTRY 



prietors usually like to see things look neat and orderly, and, 

 where thinnings are going on, this is impossible without 

 additional expense being incurred. In a rotation of eighty 

 to a hundred years three thinnings in the early stages and 

 one after height-growth has culminated should do all that is 

 necessary, and if the sylvicultural condition of the woods is 

 not quite up to the ideal, their financial results will be quite 

 as good as when men are constantly pottering about in them. 

 Every employer of labour knows that small jobs are always 

 comparatively more expensive than big ones, and a thinning 

 which takes out twenty to thirty trees to the acre can be 

 carried out much more cheaply than one which takes out 

 only five or ten, although the latter plan may be the more 

 scientific. 



PRUNING. 



At the present day pruning plays such a small part in 

 the plantation work of the English forester that it is a 

 subject scarcely worth discussing. In the days of free 

 thinning pruning was invariably called in from time to time 

 to correct irregularities or check exuberance of growth which 

 accompanied the prevailing conditions of open order, and 

 which was responsible for the practice to a greater or less 

 extent. This was especially the case in oak woods, in which 

 the greater space allowed and the practice of growing them 

 in coppice woods rendered that tree more susceptible than 

 most to faulty habits of growth. 



In the works of most of the old writers pruning occupies 

 an important place. Evelyn treats the subject of pruning 

 very fully, but it is evident that the definition of the term 

 in his day was more or less mixed up with pollarding. 

 Under pruning he includes all operations which lop or top 

 trees without actually felling them, and he asserts, " 'Tis a 

 misery to see how our forest trees are defaced and mangled 

 by unskilful Woodmen and mischievous Borderers, who go 

 always armed with short Hand-bills, hacking and chopping 

 off all that comes in their Way, by which our trees are full of 

 Knots, Stubs, Boils, Cankers, and deformed Bunches, to their 

 after Destruction." The tools of the tree-pruner he reckons 



