THE MANSE GARDEN. 87 



which shuns the inflicting of a wound that betrays 

 the worst ignorance of the pruner, and puts all trees, 

 whether forest or fruit, into the most unnatural and 

 unhealthy condition.* Should the bearing spurs 



* It were desirable to have the dispute as to the pruning of 

 forest trees settled by an appeal to facts, and which might be 

 ascertained by those who are much conversant in the sawing and 

 planeing of old timber. There are two methods of pruning, each 

 of which has its peculiar fault. One method is to cut off a branch 

 close by the stem, and allow the bark to grow over the wound : 

 and the fault of this method is, that the process of healing may 

 require some years, during which time a certain decay on the 

 surface of the wound ensues, and the decayed matter, not being 

 absorbed, as improper substances are in the animal frame, must 

 continue as it is, and may probably constitute the source ol a 

 spreading decay at a future period, after the new and healthy 

 wood has grown deep around it. Hence, it may be contended, 

 the origin of cavities so frequent in the heart of old timber. The 

 other method is not to amputate near the stem, but to mutilate 

 the branch that ought to give way, so as to check its growth but 

 leave the life in it: and the fault of this method is, that the suc- 

 cessive layers of new wood, deposited year after year, are every 

 one marred by this stump, which continues its cross grain through 

 them all, making a bad knot in every plank, and must either pro- 

 long this mischief for fifty years, or be cut off some time, and 

 cause the evil complained of in the former method, or it must 

 decay, and allow the successive layers to grow around a decayed 

 substance, proving a worse danger, by leaving outwardly a hole, 

 and inwardly a tube for conveying wet. The evil of the cross 

 stump is well seen in firs whose branches fall of their own accord, 

 not without leaving a host of ragged remains, which though dead 

 last a long time, and show in the subsequent sawing of the tim- 

 ber, as it were, the transverse perforations which they have made 

 in every deal that is cut; the perforations are indeed fitted with 

 a knot or plug, but the plug, though neatly fitted, is so indifferently 

 fixed, that it may often be pushed out with the thumb. Such 

 are the two methods of pruning, together with the fault of each. 

 The last is by much the worst, unless the first cause rotting. 

 Let some proprietor of oW trees cut down one, of which he knows 

 the very spot whence a large branch was amputated some ten or 

 twenty years before, and after taking off a slab opposite the 

 ancient wound, let the plane be applied, proceeding, under his own 

 eye, by hairbreadths, till the vertical grain be separated from those 

 that meet the plane at right angles this being the exact seat of 

 the supposed disease. The last shaving will be worth gold, as 

 it will finish the controversy, determine the rules of a delightful 

 science, and give, as the author expects, a victory to Scotland over 



