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CHAPTER X. 



THINNING YOUNG HARDWOOD PLANTATIONS. 



THINNING young hardwood plantations is a department 

 of forestry essentially different from that of thinning 

 pine and fir. Not only is it different in the general 

 procedure, but also in regard to each species of tree, 

 as the oak, ash, elm, &c., require an entirely different 

 treatment the one from the other ; and this leads us 

 back to the planting operation, for, as has been re- 

 peatedly stated (under Planting), anything done wrong 

 in planting is a wrong done for ever. 



Seeing, then, that each species of tree requires a 

 special mode of treatment peculiar to itself, the ques- 

 tion at once arises, How can proper justice be done to 

 each individual tree, when the one next it requires 

 treatment so widely different ? Take the oak and ash, 

 for example : the former is growing bent or crooked, 

 for shipbuilding, and is best so grown for that pur- 

 pose ; but the latter is grown straight, so that each grain 

 and tissue may run continuously straight without cut- 

 ting through it in the workmanship. 



A crooked tree and a straight one cannot well grow 

 together, for the simple and obvious reason that they 

 do not agree. Grouping, therefore, is the system that 

 decidedly commends itself, not only to the planter, 



