958 PRACTICE OF GARDENING. PART III. 



CHAP. V. 

 Of the Culture and Management of Plantations. 



6877. On the management of plantations, Pontey and Sang observe, that it is too 

 common a case to consider a tree, when once planted, as done with ; though, as every 

 one knows, the progress and products of trees, like those of other plants, may be greatly 

 increased or modified by cultivating the soil, pruning and thinning. 



6878. With respect to culture of the soil, it is evident that young plantations should be kept clear of such 

 weeds as have a tendency to smother the plants ; and though this is not likely to take place on heaths and 

 barren sites, yet even these should be looked over once or twice during summer, and at least those weeds 

 removed which are conspicuously injurious. In grounds which have been prepared previously to plant- 

 ing, weeding, hoeing by hand, or by the horse-hoe, and digging or ploughing, become necessary according 

 to circumstances. The hoeings are performed in summer to destroy weeds, and render the soil pervi 



to the weather ; the ploughing and diggings in winter for the same purpose, and sometimes to prepare 

 the soil for spring crops. These, both Pontey and Sang allow, may be occasionally introduced among 

 newly planted trees ; though it must not be forgotten that relatively to the trees, the plants composing 

 such crops are weeds, and some of them, as the potatoe, weeds of the most exhausting kind. 



6879. In preparing land for sowing woods, Sang ploughs in manure, sows in rows six feet apart, and 

 crops the ground between, with low-growing early potatoes, turnip, lettuce, or other green crops. He 

 does not approve of cropping the intervals with young trees, as a sort of nursery, as they prove more 

 scourging crops than esculent vegetables, nor with grain, as not admitting of culture, and being too ex- 

 hausting for the soil. Marshall, and some other authors, however, approve of sowing the tree-seeds with 

 a crop of grain, and hoeing up the stubble and weeds when the crop is removed. 



6880. Pontey observes, " that wherever preparing the soil for planting is thought necessary, that of 

 cultivating it for some years afterwards will generally be thought the same ; for where quick growth is 

 essential, cleanliness of appearance is usually of consequence. Slight crops of potatoes, with short tops, 

 or turnips, may be admitted into such plantations with advantage for two or three years, as they create a 

 necessity for annually digging or stirring the surface, and tend very materially to accelerate the growth 

 of the plants. It may be objected, that such crops must impoverish the soil, and no doubt but such is 

 the fact, so far as common vegetables are concerned ; but as to the production of wood, its support de- 

 pends, in a great measure, on a different species of nutriment ; and hence, I could never observe that 

 such cropping damaged it materially." (Profit. Plant, p. 153.) Osier -plantations for basket-willows and 

 hoops, require digging and cleaning during the whole course of their existence ; and so do hedge-rows to 

 a certain extent, and some ornamental plantations. 



6881. Filling up blanks is one of the first operations that occurs in the culture of plantations next to the 

 general culture of the soil, and the care of the external fences. According to Sang, a forest plant- 

 ation after pitting, either in the mass form or ordinary mixture, should remain several years after plant- 

 ing, before filling up the vacancies, by the death of the hard- wood plants, takes place. Hard- wood plants, 

 in the first year, and even sometimes in the second year after planting, die down quite to the surface of 

 the ground, and are apparently dead, while their roots, and the wood immediately above them, are quite 

 fresh, and capable of producing very vigorous shoots, which they frequently do produce, if allowed to 

 stand in their places. If a tree, such as that above alluded to, be'taken out the first or second year after 

 planting, and the place filled up with a fresh plant of the same kind, what happened to the former may 

 probably happen to the latter; and so the period of raising a plant on the spot may be protracted to a 

 great length of time ; or it is possible this object may never be gained. 



6882. The filling up of the hard wood kinds in a plantation which has been planted after trenching, or sum- 

 mer-fallow which has been kept clean by the hoe, may be done with safety at an earlier period than under 

 the foregoing circumstances ; because the trees, in the present case, have greater encouragement to grow 

 vigorously after planting, and may be more easily ascertained to be entirely dead, than where the natural 

 herbage is allowed to grow among them. 



6883. But the filling up of larches and pines may take place the first spring after the plantation has been 

 made 5 because such of these trees as have died are more easily distinguished. In many cases when a larch 

 or a fir loses its top, either by dying down, or the biting of hares and rabbits, the most vigorous lateral branch 

 is elected by nature to supply the deficiency, which by degrees assumes the character of an original top. 

 Pines and larches, therefore, which have fresh lateral branches, are not to be displaced, although they 

 have lost their tops. Indeed, no tree in the forest, or other plantation, ought to be removed, until there 

 be no room left to hope for its recovery. If the filling up of plantations be left undone till the trees have 

 risen to fifteen or twenty feet in height, their roots are spread far abroad, and their tops occupy a consi- 

 derable space. The introduction of two or three plants, from a foot to three feet in height, at a particular 

 deficient place, can never, in the above circumstances, be attended with any advantage. Such plants may 

 indeed become bushes, and may answer well enough in the character of underwood, but they will for ever 

 remain unfit for any other purpose. It is highly improper, then, to commence the filling up of hard-wood 

 plantations before the third year after planting ; or to protract it beyond the fifth or the sixth. March is 

 the proper season for this operation. (Plant. Kalend. 295.) 



6884. Pruning is the most important operation of tree culture, since on it, in almost 

 every case, depends the ultimate value, and in most cases, the actual bulk of timber pro- 

 duced. In the purposes of pruning, as for most other practical purposes, the division of 

 trees into resinous or frondose-branched trees, and into non-resinous or branchy-headed 

 sorts, is of use. The main object in pruning frondose-branched trees is to produce a trunk 

 with clean bark and sound timber ; that in pruning branchy-stemmed trees, is prin- 

 cipally to direct the ligneous matter of the tree into the main stem or trunk, and also to 

 produce a clean stem and sound timber, as in the other case. The branches of frondose 

 trees, unless in extraordinary cases, never acquire a timber size, but rot off from the 

 bottom upwards, as the tree advances in height and age ; and, therefore, whether pruned 

 or not, the quantity of timber in the form of trunk is the same. The branches of the 

 other division of trees, however, when left to spread out on every side, often acquire a 

 timber-like size ; and as the ligneous matter they contain is in general far from being 

 so valuable as when produced in the form of a straight stem, the loss by not pruning off 

 their side branches, or preventing them from acquiring a timber-like size, is evident. On 

 the other hand, when they are broken off by accident, or rot off by being crowded toge- 

 ther, the timber of the trunk, though in these cases increased in quantity, is rendered 

 knotty and rotten in quality. 



