1 86 FOREST PLANTATIONS. [Jan. 



or foft-wood plantation fhould be kept thicker at 

 any period of its growth than any of thofe con- 

 fiding cf hard wood and nurfes already mention- 

 ed ; and it may fometimes be proper to prune up 

 certain plants as nurfes, as hinted at above for 

 nurfes in a mixed plantation. Thofe pruned up 

 trees are of courfe to be reckoned temporary 

 plants, and are afterwards to be the firft thinned 

 out: next to thefe, all plants which have loft 

 their leaders by accident, mould be condemned ; 

 becaufe fuch will never regain them fo far, as af- 

 terwards to become (lately timber ; provided aU 

 ways, however, that the removal of thefe muti- 

 lated trees caufe no material blank in the planta- 

 tion. 



Care mould be taken to prevent whipping ; nor 

 mould the plantation be thinned much at any one 

 time, left havock be made by prevailing winds ; 

 an evil which many, through inadvertency, have 

 thus incurred. This precaution feems the more 

 neceifary, inafmuch as Scots Firs, intended for 

 ufeful large timber, are prefumed never to be 

 planted except in expofed fituations and thin foils. 



At forty years of age, a good medium diftance 

 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 fixty 

 years, it will be proper to thin more freely, in 

 order, by the more free admnTion cf air, to hard- 

 tin 



