Of Plantations. 497 



profitable channels. These are the crown branches, and the 

 stems of the trees above the foreshortened branches. The 

 stems increase in size, in proportion to the additional quan- 

 tity of sap thrown into them, and the desired object is then 

 effected ; for the crown branches soon expand over the fore- 

 shortened side branches, and those in consequence soon be- 

 gin to decay. They die gradually, dwindle away, and 

 their stumps are ultimately pushed out, and pinched off by 

 the increased size of the stem timber. By these means, the 

 operations of nature, in what has been called " natural 

 *' pruning," are closely imitated in the result of pruning by 

 foreshortening, as here described. It is desirable, that all 

 persons who practise close pruning large trees, should sa- 

 tisfy themselves, as to the accuracy of the assertions here 

 made in regard to the effects of that practice ; and that they 

 may readily do, by opening some of the places where branches 

 had been cut off close, and the bark and new wood healed 

 over the wounds. Those places are denoted by round pro- 

 minences on the stems. 



In managing plantations, a most material object is, to 

 give a due proportion of air, and of shelter. In many 

 cases, plantations, which have been well attended to in re- 

 spect of inclosing, draining, and properly planting, have 

 thriven well for the first 12 or 15 years, yet in 15 years 

 more, the forest trees have been ruined, by allowing the 

 Scotch fir and larch, which had been judiciously planted 

 for shelter, to remain for 25 or 30 years. The oak and 

 the ash have been partly destroyed, and those which remain 

 are, for want of air, so drawn up, and left in such a debilitated 

 state, that though their oppressors be at length removed, 

 they cannot support themselves ; and the few that can stand, 

 from the sudden transition which they have undergone, im- 

 mediately stagnate, and become overgrown with moss ( 5o1 ). 



While the engrafting of fruit-trees has been found so ad- 

 vantageous, the same operation with forest-trees, has like- 

 wise been tried with success, and is certainly entitled to 

 more attention than hitherto has been paid to it ( 6 2 ). 



6. In Holland, tall forest-trees, 20 feet high, are trans- 

 planted every third year, and can be removed without much 

 risk of going back. A ship load of such forest-trees has been 

 sent from Holland to Russia, many of them from 20 to 25 

 feet in height, and very few of them missed ( 6 3 ). The 

 practice of transplanting trees, has been reduced to a regu- 

 lar system, by an able friend to useful discoveries, (Sir Henry 



2 I 3 



