WOODS AND PLANTATIONS. 387 



growing state, and will continue to give a large annual income for many 

 years to come. 



The thinning of plantations on all estates should be carried out in a 

 regular systematic way. Like everything else on a landed estate, the 

 management of the woods and plantations should be reduced to a system ; 

 and if this is done, the different operations will be carried out more 

 economically, and with greater advantage to the crops, than if they 

 were done at random. With a view to this, the plantations should be 

 divided into different classes, according to their ages, and these classes 

 divided into equal portions, and a portion taken in hand and operated 

 upon in each year. We shall, for instance, suppose that there are two 

 hundred and twenty-five acres of plantations on an estate, varying in 

 age from ten to twenty years ; then we should divide that extent into 

 three equal portions, and let one portion be taken in hand and thinned 

 and otherwise improved in each year. Presuming one portion was dealt 

 with in 1868, a second would come in to be operated on in 1869, and 

 the third in 1870. Then the first portion that was dealt with in 1868 

 would again come to be further improved in 1871. 



Again, presuming that there are three hundred and sixty acres of 

 plantations on an estate, varying in age from twenty to thirty- five years, 

 we should divide this extent into four equal portions, and take ninety 

 acres of it to be dealt with in each year, and carried out in the same 

 manner as already described in the preceding paragraph. 



If there should be any considerable extent of woods varying from 

 thirty-five to fifty years old, we should divide this class into five equal 

 portions, and take one portion to be thinned and otherwise dealt with 

 in each year, and so on. As the ages of the wood increase, they will 

 not require to be thinned so frequently, as the older the trees get, 

 they are the less inclined to grow branches, and therefore will take a 

 longer time to meet each other. 



All thinning operations should be carried out in the spring of the year, 

 as the remaining crop has the full year to improve before the winter 

 blasts come. If thinned in the autumn, the crop is at once exposed to 

 the cold winds and storms before it has had any time to recover itself. 



Plantations which are kept thick and crowded prevent a free circula- 

 tion of air in the districts in which they are situated ; and when there 

 are large masses of such, I believe that they are also prejudicial to the 

 health of the population. Where thinnings are systematically carried 

 out, the health of the district is improved. This is shown in the fol- 

 lowing paper, on Arboriculture as a Science, which was read before the 

 British Association at Dundee in 1867, by Mr William Brown, factor 

 to Colonel Farquharson of Invercauld : 



