187 



ment in all cases appears manifest., where the protecting 

 properties are most fully displayed. If these things be true, 

 it will follow, that to prepare trees for removal only means, 

 to allow nature, if I may so speak, to do her own work : and 

 that we shall always best accomplish, by clearing away those 

 accidental obstacles, and mechanical impediments, which 

 are sometimes thrown in her way ; as they obstruct and 

 misdirect the simple, but efficient methods which she employs, 

 towards the accompHshment of one of the most beautiful, 

 as well as complicated of her processes. The difficulty lies 

 in administering to nature discreetly ; neither officiously 

 directing her on the one hand, nor rudely controlling her on 

 the other. 



The main obstacle or impediment to the acquisition of the 

 protecting properties in trees, is shelter and closeness, or the 

 want of a sufficient action of the atmosphere around them. 

 Vegetable, like animal life, is dependent for its existence on 

 the external conditions of food, air, water, and heat, while 

 light is a condition more peculiar to plants. Where trees, 

 as in unthinned plantations, press too closely on one another, 

 the range which the roots require for their food, is circum- 

 scribed. Wind being in a great degree excluded, and eva- 

 poration prevented, heat is by consequence generated in an 

 undue degree. In the same way, light is nearly shut out 

 from such plantations, except from the top, and a dispropor- 

 tioned elongation of the stem is occasioned, by the efforts 

 which each individual makes to gain the hght. By these 

 means, the bark becomes thinner and more delicate, the roots 

 more scanty, and the spray and branches more open and 

 sparing, than when there is a greater action of the atmos- 

 phere, and a freer access of light. Thus, by the law of 

 nature, by which trees accommodate themselves to the cir- 

 cumstances in which they are placed, as the possession of 

 the non -protecting properties does not constitute the most 

 natural, or most perfect state of trees, but is superinduced by 



