154 THINNING. 



regularity of the trees upon the ground should be 

 avoided, for however desirable this is theoretically, 

 yet in practice it cannot be attained. A plantation, 

 for example, contains 2000 trees per acre, at which 

 distance they stand about 4J feet apart; after thin- 

 ning is once commenced the trees cannot again be 

 equidistant till one tree is taken out from between 

 each two, and then there are not, as might at first 

 thought be supposed, 1000 trees left upon the ground 

 as the crop, but only about 500. Neither is it im- 

 perative that the trees be all of the same size; to 

 attempt this would also be vain and fruitless, for it 

 would imply not only equality of seed and seedlings, 

 but equality of all the varied conditions under which 

 trees are grown. Of all trees in the forest, none are 

 more accommodating or easily influenced for good or 

 ill by thinning as the larch. We saw, some years 

 ago, a larch-tree on the famous Culbin Sands near 

 Torres, in Morayshire, which had stood over twenty 

 years, without attaining over 4 feet in height or 

 three-quarters of an inch in diameter. After that 

 date it was relieved of other trees confining it, when, 

 like magic, it started into growth and grew most 

 rapidly. 



Another remarkable example of extraordinary ac- 

 celerated growth in a larch-tree came under our own 

 observation in the policies of Cullen House a few years 

 ago. It was found necessary to cut down a larch-tree 

 for a particular purpose ; and after the tree was cut 

 and laid down in the sawmill-yard to be sawn into 

 scantlings, we noticed something very unusual in the 

 appearance of the rings or annual growths, as shown 

 at the butt-end of the tree. In order, therefore, to 

 know the cause of such peculiar growth, the tree was 



