30 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



pleasure, besides a refreshing shade for travellers, should he plant 

 a few trees such as elms, maples, lindens, etc., along the highways 

 near his dwelling, every one opposite his own house, to be followed 

 by all those owning farms, till city greets town, town greets vil- 

 lage, and village greets hamlet, with lines of handsome shade trees, 

 highways and by-ways being thereby adorned and beautified, and 

 the weary sheltered and refreshed by their grateful shade. 



Thinning Plantations. — While it is desirable that forest trees 

 should be thickly planted, as they thereby nurse each other, it is 

 also of great importance that the thinning be attended to in proper 

 time, for the longer it is left undone, when it should be attended 

 to, say in from twelve to fifteen years after planting, the more they 

 will get entangled together and the hai'der it will be to decide 

 which to take and which to leave, and in a short time their beauty 

 will be destroyed and their individuality lost ; but an inexperi- 

 enced backwoodsman should by no means be allowed to go there 

 with his axe until all the trees to be cut down are distinctly marked. 



Those having charge of public grounds would do well to attend 

 to the trees under their care before it is too late. Many trees, 

 such as elms and maples, soon crowd each other and lose their 

 beauty, therefore begin in time to thin out, either b}^ pruning or by 

 taking out some entirely, so as to permit the cheerful sunshine to 

 fall occasionally on the paths, and not let the minds of proraenad- 

 ers be impressed with the idea that they are in a dense forest, 

 where neither sun nor air can be seen or felt, and grass can never 

 grow. 



Pruning should never be attempted by the inexperienced, except 

 under the direction of a practiced teacher, for otherwise they are 

 more likely to do harm than good. We sometimes see, in sub- 

 urban gardens, fruit trees, especially pear trees, which have made 

 good healthy shoots from one to three feet in length, headed down 

 as squarely as if the pruner had been trimming a hedge ; and, as a 

 consequence, a thick, bushy head of young wood, instead of a well- 

 shaped head formed by thinning regularly, cutting out some of 

 the shoots altogether, and shortening those left according to their 

 strength. An experienced pruner, by taking a glance at a young 

 tree, can easily see what buds should be removed and what should 

 be left, and can, in a few minutes, prune it with his thumb nail, 

 so that the tree will require little more care for the season. Trees 

 thus managed will liave few large limbs requiring to be cut away. 



