THINNING PLANTATIONS. 95 



There are, indeed, few proprietors' estates in 

 Scotland upon which there is not considerable 

 room for improvements, as regards the thinning 

 of their plantations. There is a decided loss of 

 timber, as well as shelter, whenever plantations are 

 made too thin; and there is also equally as de- 

 cided a loss where they are not sufficiently thinned. 

 Wlierever plantations have remained long in a 

 close state, and are thinned suddenly and severely, 

 which I term injudicious thinning, they are at 

 once cooled ; and that I reckon equal to being 

 removed a few degrees of latitude farther north, 

 or to a situation a few hundred feet higher 

 than the original; and the natural consequence 

 is, that the greater part of the trees which have 

 undergone such treatment, become what is gene- 

 rally termed hide-hound — the bark contracts, and 

 prevents the free flow of the sap, consequently it 

 stagnates and breaks out into sores; the trees fail 

 to make wood ; and, in fact, the whole plantation 

 falls into a state of consumption and declines gra- 

 dually. I have frequently been called upon to exa- 

 mine and give my advice relative to what ought to 

 be done with plantations in such a state as that 

 described above ; and wherever I have found plan- 

 tations above tliirty years old to be in the state 

 described, and to have stood in the same state for 

 four or five years, without showing much signs of any 

 improvement, I have always in such cases recom- 



