962 PRACTICE OF GARDENING. PART III. 



thinning, the consideration which should in all cases predominate, is to cut for the good 

 of the timber left, disregarding the value of the thinnings. For, if we have it in our 

 choice to leave a good, and take away a bad plant or kind, and if it be necessary that one 

 of the two should fall, the only question should be, by leaving which of them shall we do 

 most justice to the laudable intention of raising excellent and full-sized timber for the 

 benefit of ourselves and of posterity ? The worst tree should never be left, but with the 

 view of filling up an accidental vacancy." 



6906. In thinningmixed plantations, the removing of the nurses is the first object which generally 

 claims attention. This, however, 'should be cautiously performed ; otherwise the intention of nursing 

 might, after all, be thwarted. If the situation be much exposed, it will be prudent to retain more nurses, 

 although the plantation itself be rather crowded, than where the situation is sheltered. In no case, how- 

 ever, should the nurses be suffered to overtop or whip the plants intended for a timber crop ; and for this 

 reason, in bleak situations, and when perhaps particular nurse-plants can hardly be spared, it may some- 

 times be necessary to prune off the branches from one side entirely. At subsequent thinnings, such pruned or 

 disfigured plants are first to be removed ; and then those which, from their situation, may best be dispensed 

 with. At what period of the age of the plantation all the nurses are to be removed, cannot easily be de- 

 termined ; and, indeed, if the nurses chiefly consist of larches, it may with propriety be said, that they 

 should never be totally removed, while any of the other kinds remain. For, besides that this plant is ad- 

 mirably calculated to compose part of a beautiful mixture, it is excelled by few kinds, perhaps by none, as 

 a timber-tree. 



6907. But when the nurses consist of inferior kinds, such as the mountain ash and the Scots pine, they 

 should generally be all removed by the time that the plantation arrives at the height of fifteen or twenty 

 feet, in order that the timber-trees may not, by their means, be drawn up too weak and slender. Before 

 this time, it may probably be necessary to thin out a part of the other kinds. The least valuable, and the 

 Ijast thriving plants, should first be condemned, provided their removal occasion no blank or chasm ; but 

 where this would happen, they should be allowed to stand till the next, or other subsequent revision. At 

 what distance of time this revision should take place, cannot easily be determined ; as the matter must 

 very much depend on the circumstances of soil, shelter, and the state of health in which the plants may 

 be. In general the third season after will be soon enough ; and if the plantation be from thirty to forty 

 years old, and in a thriving state, it will require to be revised again, in most cases, within seven years. But 

 one invariable rule ought to prevail in all cases, and in all situations ; to allow no plant to overtop or whip 

 another. Respect should be nad to the distance of the tops, not to the distance of the roots of the trees ; 

 for some kinds require much more head-room than others ; and all trees do not rise perpendicular to their 

 roots, even on the most level or sheltered ground. 



6908. With respect to the final distance to which trees standing in a mixed plantation should be 

 thinned, it is hardly possible to prescribe fixed rules ; circumstances of health, vigor, the spreading nature 

 of the tree, and the like, must determine. Whether the trees are to be suffered to stand till full-grown ; 

 which of the kinds the soil seems best fitted for ; whether the ground be flat or elevated ; and whether the 

 situation be expose^ or sheltered, are all circumstances which must influence the determination of the 

 ultimate distance afwhich the trees are to stand. It may, however, be said in general, that if trees be al- 

 lowed a distance of from twenty-five to thirty feet, according to their kinds and manner of growth, they 

 will have room enough to become larger timber. 



6909. Plantations of Scots pine, if the plants have been put in at three or three and a half feet apart, wil\ 

 require little care until the trees be ten or twelve feet nigh. It is necessary to keep such plantations 

 thick in the early stages of their growth, in order that the trees may tower the faster, and push fewer 

 and weaker side branches. Indeed, a fir or soft wood plantation should be kept thicker at any period 

 of its growth than any of those consisting of hard wood and nurses already mentioned ; and it may 

 sometimes be proper to prune up certain plants as nurses, as hinted at above for nurses in a mixed 

 plantation. Those pruned up trees are of course to be reckoned temporary plants, and are afterwards 

 to be the first thinned out: next to these, all plants which have lost their leaders by accident should be 

 condemned ; because such will never regain them so far as afterwards to become stately timber; provided that 

 the removal of these mutilated trees cause no material blank in the plantation. Care should betaken 

 to prevent whipping; nor should the plantation be thinned much at any one time, lest havoc be made 

 by prevailing winds ; an evil which many, through inadvertency, have thus incurred. This precaution 

 seems the more necessary, inasmuch as Scots pine, intended for useful large timber, are presumed never 

 to be planted except in exposed situations and thin soils. At forty years of age, a good medium dis- 

 tance for the trees may be about fifteen feet every way. It may be worthy of remark, however, that 

 after a certain period, perhaps by the time that the plantation arrives at the age of fifty or sixty years, 

 it will be proper to thin more freely, in order to harden the timber ; and that, then, this may be done 

 with less risk of danger, from the strength the trees will have acquired, than at an earlier period ; but 

 still it should be done gradually. 



6910. Plantations of spruce and silver firs, intended for large useful timber, should be kept much in 

 the manner above stated, both in their infancy and middle age. As already remarked, planting and 

 keeping them as thick as is consistent with their health, is the best means of producing tall, straight, 

 clean stems, and valuable timber. When planted for screens or for ornament, they require a different 

 treatment ; which will be noticed in the proper place. 



6911. To larch-plantations, the above observations will also apply ; and indeed they are applicable 

 to plantations of all kinds of resinous trees. It may be proper here to remark, that the exposed 

 margins of all young plantations should be kept thicker than the interior. The extent to which this 

 rule should be carried, must be regulated according to the degree of exposure of the situation, the age 

 of the plants, the tenderness of the kinds, and other circumstances. 



6912. The proper seasons for thinning are autumn, or very early in spring, where the 

 trees are to be taken up by the root and replanted elsewhere ; and winter for thinning for 

 timber and fuel ; but such trees as are valuable for their bark should be left untouched 

 till the sap rises in April or May. Copse-woods require thinning when young, like 

 other plantations, and when once established the stools require to be gone over the second 

 year after cutting, and all superfluous suckers and shoots removed. This operation 

 should be repeated annually, or every two or three years, in connection with pruning, till 

 within three or four years of the general fall of the crop. 



6913. Ornamental plantations require to be thinned on principles agreeable to the intention with which 

 they were planted. In the artificial forms, the figure must be carefully preserved, as the main object ; 

 and in plantations in imitation of nature, the principle of grouping and connection must be kept steadily 

 in view. A thin part is to be rendered thinner, and a thick group, or constellation of plants not opened 

 up, but < oerely deprived of such trees as are becoming smothered by the rest. , 



