172 THINNING. 



develop itself and make wood properly ; in fact, it 

 ceases to grow to anything like satisfaction at that 

 very period when it should be making wood faster 

 than at any other period of its history. If only it 

 could be borne in mind that the loss of every lower 

 branch of a young tree is just a corresponding loss of 

 roots, and as the branches suffer so do the roots, if so 

 kept in mind and practised, it would be a good and 

 profitable thing for every one interested in woodland 

 property. 



To the preservation of the lower branches of the 

 celebrated larch forests of the Duke of Athole (more 

 than anything else) may be attributed their successful 

 growth. The Duke's larch forests were instructed to 

 be planted 6 feet apart, and that distance, assuming 

 that all the trees grew, allowed all the lower branches 

 to grow 3 feet in length before being checked ; but as 

 numbers of them would no doubt decay early, others 

 from accidents and other causes perish, many of the 

 trees would thereby produce their lower branches 

 twice that length, hence the splendid results of the 

 growth of the larch in these forests. 



Having witnessed so much injury inflicted upon 

 young plantations, and some entirely ruined, by the 

 lower branches being interfered with when too young, 

 we would recommend, in the strongest possible terms, 

 the special attention of all who have the management 

 of plantations to this all-important aspect of the 

 subject of thinning. 



Many plantations under thirty years old may be 

 benefited by thinning if the trees have only sufficient 

 branches ; but where they have stood so closely 

 together as to have destroyed each other's vitality to 

 two-thirds their entire height, all hope of restoring 



