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an ample supply of air and light. When, therefore, two trees are 

 so near that their branches extensively intermingle, one should be 

 removed ; and, generally, it should be that one which is much 

 taller or shorter than the neighboring trees. In pruning, that 

 branch should be shortened which encroaches on other branches of 

 its own, or another tree 



In many hard wood trees, shoots spring vigorously from the 

 stool or stump, after the tree is cut down ; and this mode of re- 

 production is chiefly rehed upon in most of the woodlands of 

 this State. It becomes, then, of great importance to ascertain 

 what are the best modes of felling, whether by thinning it out the 

 forest or cutting it entirely down ; in what period a wood, so cut 

 down, will renew itself, so as to be profitably cut again ; at what 

 age of the tree the stump will shoot most vigorously ; at what age, 

 if any, trees cease to shoot from the stool ; what trees will not 

 thus shoot ; what season of the year is found best for felling a 

 forest, when the object is to have it renew itself speedily ; and 

 what season', when the object is to destroy the forest 



In felling for timber, the practice is to select suitable 



trees, from any part of the forest In felling for fuel .... 



it has now become nearly a universal practice to cut clean and 

 close. Experience has uniformly shown this to be the most eco- 

 nomical. 



The white or grey birch is of most rapid growth, and 



springs at once from the stump. This may be profitably cut in 

 from ten to twenty years ; a growth of maple, ash and birch, 

 black, yellow and white, in twenty to twenty-five ; oaks, in from 

 twenty to thirty-three. Where the trees are principally oak .... 

 the forest may be cut clean three times in a century. Cedar 

 swamps, which grow from seed, cannot be profitably cut in less 



than forty years. Pitch pines require from forty to 



sixty years to be in a condition to be felled. In many places, the 

 experiment has been tried of burning over the surface, ploughing 

 and sowing with rye. When the trees have been of hard wood, 

 t'lis practice has been strongly condemned. In the case of pitch 

 pines it is recommended. The seedhng pines make most rapid 



progress when the surface has been softened by cultivation 



The trees best for fuel shoot again most readily and grow most 

 vigorously whoa cut under twenty-five years. The wood is form- 



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