158 



just as well as to the least. But it is material to notice, that 

 size implies greater labour and contingency, and, by conse- 

 quence, more powerful machinery ; and both rise in a ratio 

 far more accelerated, than might at first be conceived to cor- 

 respond with the increased dimensions of the trees. My 

 own operations as to size having been of a limited sort (the 

 subjects seldom exceeding thirty -five or thirty-six feet high, 

 and in the stem from fifteen to eighteen inches in diameter) 

 I do not presume to prescribe to what height others should 

 go, because it is altogether arbitrary : but I may with confi- 

 dence recommend below what height they should never 

 descend. No subject, in my jvidgment, should be selected 

 for removal, of which the girth of stem is less than from 

 eighteen inches to two feet, or, in other words, whose diam- 

 eter does not extend to six or eight inches at the least, reck- 

 oning at a foot from the ground : the height of the tree 

 being supposed from fifteen to eighteen feet. Any subject, 

 possessing a lesser magnitude, and lesser proportional stout- 

 ness than this, I consider as unfit for judicious removal, in 

 exposed situations, and destitute of proper stamina to resist 

 the elements. To this injunction I may add, that in the 

 above, as in every case, we should labour to acquire, by ob- 

 servation and study, a knowledge of that nice and adequate 

 adaptation to circumstances of the protecting properties, which 

 nature displays in her more or less open dispositions of Wood, 

 and learn to follow her provident example. All that the best 

 preceptive efforts can do, is to point out and illustrate the prin- 

 ciple in its general bearings : it is judgment and experience 

 only, that can give the practice. 



