CHAPTER XIX. 



TREE-PRUNING. 



More nonsense has been written on tree-pruning and more 

 injury done to woods and plantations by its practice than 

 perhaps any other operation in the whole range of forest 

 management. Where tress are grown for profit, they will, 

 if properly managed, prune themselves, and where for 

 ornament the natural outline is far better than any of the 

 contortions and symmetrical shapes that have been recom- 

 mended by various writers on the subject. 



A broken or dead branch may be removed, a rival lead- 

 ing shoot cut away, or an ungainly limb amputated, but 

 here all pruning should cease, the practice being wholly 

 wrong and unreasonable, and without one recommendation 

 that could be adduced in its favour. In an economic way 

 the finest plantations of either coniferous or hard-wooded 

 trees in this country are those where the individual specimens 

 are growing so thickly together that the branches are killed 

 outright for fully one half of their height. Here the stems 

 will be straight and clean, and the timber when converted 

 free from the knots and warping that are so characteristic 

 either of standard specimens or such as have been grown too 

 thinly on the ground. 



Everyone knows that an Oak growing alone or along the 

 margins of a wood is in nine cases out of ten branched 

 almost to the ground, and the bole in consequence rough and 

 ill-fitted for any particular constructive purpose, and the 

 same may be said of every other tree, be it hard-wooded or 

 coniferous. Larch and Scotch Fir trees growing along the 



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