6 PRACTICAL FORESTRY. 



derived from thinnings. If the above facts were well 

 weighed by landowners, it would probably incite them 

 to plant more than any sophistry. 



Our object, then, in the following pages, is to 

 endeavour, in a concise and practical way, to lay 

 before the landowner and agent, and, we hope, the 

 bond, fide woodman, the true principles of practical 

 forestry, to eliminate science as science, but to merge 

 it with practice, because we hold that, to ensure 

 success, the two must run together. Neither can 

 stand alone, and a forester possessing one or the other, 

 but not both, is from a practical point of view a use- 

 less incumbrance. If we succeed in the most trifling 

 degree in promoting a desire to learn, and so advance 

 the grand scheme of national and private education 

 in forestry, we shall be more than repaid. 



Our object will be to carry the reader through a 

 series of seasons and periods, and through the various 

 operations in the plantations and 'woods ; to describe 

 the processes of drainage, planting, thinning, pruning, 

 and final realisation. To consider the selection of 

 sites, soils, form, and size of plantations ; the selection 

 of trees, and the objects of planting. Also to consider 

 the necessary pains and precautions to secure beauti- 

 ful and ornamental specimens. 



At the same time, our object is to interest the 

 forester, and to induce him to search further into the 

 intricacies of this magnificent study by referring to 

 standard works, which deal more thoroughly with 

 detail than a work of this nature is capable of. 



