LANDSCAPE FORESTRY 219 



clumps, and small woods planted on the crests of hills, as has 

 been, or will be dealt with later on. 



Another frequent cause of lack of variety in woods is the 

 removal of all but normally shaped trees in thinnings. In a 

 natural forest trees of all ages and sizes will be found, and 

 this is a constant scource of variety ; but in an even-aged 

 plantation the only difference in the size of the trees is due 

 to different conditions of growth, such as extra space or over- 

 crowding, or to accidental agencies, such as wind or snow. 

 The natural instinct of the forester is to remove all these 

 broken or partly suppressed trees, and, from a forestry point 

 of view, that is the correct thing to do. But it is just such 

 trees as these that give that touch of nature to artificially 

 formed plantations, without which they are mere crops of 

 poles, and too formal to please the picturesque eye. A 

 stunted or deformed tree in its youth may not be particu- 

 larly attractive to anyone, and to leave large masses of such 

 trees behind when thinning is neither necessary nor advisable. 

 But a tree or two here and there along the margins of rides, 

 or at odd corners do no harm, and often become, when they 

 have attained a venerable age, exceedingly picturesque. The 

 leaning, forked, or crooked stem, the irregularly shaped 

 crown, or the partly suppressed trees surrounding a well- 

 developed specimen, all add a pleasing amount of variety to 

 a middle-aged plantation, which would otherwise be tame and 

 uninteresting to all but the professional forester or timber 

 merchant. The retention of a thick group here and there, 

 allowing the trees in them to settle matters for themselves, 

 is also another source of variety which can easily be taken 

 advantage of. The tall, clean stems in the centre of such 

 groups, with the varying heights and sizes of the crowns of 

 those round the margins, afford a great deal of variety which 

 even-aged plantations would otherwise lack, while the greater 

 or smaller inclination of the smaller trees from the per- 

 pendicular gives the plantation a more natural appearance 

 than it would otherwise possess when thinned in the ordinary 

 way. 



The preservation of a few open spaces or wastes is also 

 another means of giving variety to large woods. Occasionally 

 patches of soil exist which are quite unsuited for timber 



