AMONG THE OAKS 109 



The young trees should therefore be gradually 

 accustomed to a larger growing-space, so that the 

 crown of foliage of the tree may increase and 

 form a greater quantity of wood year by year. 



Thenceforth, thinnings or partial clearances of 

 the crop are necessary about every ten to fifteen 

 or twenty years when the expanding crowns of 

 the trees are found to interfere with each other. 

 And when such operations are being carried out, 

 the trees removed are of course those which show 

 signs of disease, trees of other kinds, like ash or 

 sycamore, which reach their full physical maturity 

 at an earlier age than oak, and such oak as would 

 prove least profitable if allowed to remain longer 

 on the ground for the purpose of thickening into 

 larger and more valuable stems. 



Up to this period in the cultivation of crops 

 of oak timber, judicious thinning forms the best 

 method of tending oak highwoods. With the 

 exception of larch, no timber tree is so much as 

 the oak dependent on thinning for its healthy 

 growth and continuous development. The great 

 golden rule for thinning, 'Begin at an early 

 period, carry it out moderately, and repeat the 

 operation frequently,' is one whose judicious appli- 



