THINNING MIXED PLANTATIONS. 193 



worthy of special notice is the regular systematic 

 manner in which it has always been rather over than 

 under thinned from first commencement up to 1868. 

 In confirmation of this statement the writer would 

 remark, that while in this case 150 trees consti- 

 tuted the crop per acre, a professional (forester), 

 whose writings on tree -culture are well known, gives 

 two instances of thinning like plantations of ages 

 similar to this, the one having 365 trees upon an 

 acre, and the other 390, being in both cases more 

 than double the number found in this one. 



No. 2 is another plantation of a general mixture 

 in the south of Eoxburghshire, planted in 1850 and 

 1851, situated at an altitude of between 400 and 

 500 feet. It occupies part of a glen extending from 

 north to south, the bottom of which is well sheltered 

 from all points, and only the outskirts along the top of 

 the banks are exposed ; the length of the plantation is 

 about 700 yards, by a mean width of about 130 yards, 

 comprising an area of about 20 acres. 



The trees of which the plantation is composed are 

 larch, spruce, Scots pine, oak, ash, elm, and sycamore. 

 The two former were planted to act as nurses to the 

 three latter, as the ultimate crop, and the following 

 statement is designed to show 



First, The evil effects of the mixing of different 

 kinds of trees in plantations such as the loss and 

 damage occasioned thereby, the greater difficulty of 

 management, the disadvantage at which the trees are 

 grown, and the greater expense they entail. 



In order to illustrate these results the writer would 

 endeavour to draw attention to the following parti- 

 culars, such as the great proportion of slow-growing 

 trees sacrificed by those of rapid growth over-growing 



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