96 BRITISH FOREST TREES 



dangers to which the spruce then becomes exposed ; and for 

 the same reason the retention of standards, when mature 

 crops are being cleared, is always combined with more risk 

 than is prudent. Here again, however, the same end can 

 be better attained by growing the spruce in admixture with 

 other species, such as the beech, silver fir, or pine. 



The thinning out of pure forests of spruce is usually 

 confined to the removal of suppressed individuals, and of 

 those likely to be immediately suppressed, and in localities 

 where damage from snow is not improbable the operations 

 must be conducted carefully. As the natural habit of spruce 

 is to grow in close canopy, any premature removal of poles 

 can only be an unnecessary diminution of the number of 

 individual stems per acre. In the weedings and clearings 

 which take place in young crops before thinnings are begun, 1 

 all soft woods and coppice shoots of trees forming part of the 

 former crop should be removed in order to avoid the forma- 

 tion of blanks later on, birches if left standing often do 

 great damage by rubbing and chafing leading-shoots of 

 the spruce, and when the crop has been formed by thick 

 sowing or planting in wisps of two or three on the poorer 

 classes of spruce soil, these early protective measures for 

 improving the growth of the young stock often occasion 

 great trouble and considerable expense. In the thickets 

 formed by planting in wisps on inferior soil, it is especially 

 necessary to repeat the thinnings as frequently as possible, 

 in order to assist nature in the selection of the predominat- 

 ing stems to form the future crop ; the longer such operations 

 are delayed the more difficult and expensive do they become 



1 Under clearings and weedings are classifiable all the operations in 

 young woods which necessitate an outlay that cannot be covered by 

 sale of the material cut out ; when the costs involved are covered, or 

 more than covered, by the proceeds obtained, the operations are then 

 properly termed thinnings. 



