142 THE REARING OF 



very much affected by variety of soil and situation ; 

 and being aware of these circumstances, it is folly 

 to say that a plantation of trees can be thinned 

 advantageously at any definite period. After any 

 young plantation has been thinned for the first 

 time, it is advantageous to its welfare to go over 

 it and take out a few trees in the way of thinning, 

 at intervals of four or five years — in all cases judg- 

 ing upon this point according to the appearance 

 of the trees, whether they may have grown rapidly 

 or not since they were last thinned ; and at such 

 thinnings I would advise every proprietor merely 

 to take out such trees as are really doing injury to 

 others. By this method, which I always practise 

 myself, plantations never experience any sensible 

 check, and consequently they are kept in a con- 

 stant quick-growing state ; whereas, by the method 

 of thinning at regular intervals of ten years, the 

 trees in a plantation are by that time generally 

 hurt to a very great extent from the effects of con- 

 finement ; and as soon as they are thinned, in such 

 a manner as to relieve each tree for another period 

 of ten years, the whole plantation must be very 

 much cooled down in temperature and shelter from 

 what it was before the operation was performed, 

 and the natural consequence is, that the trees thus 

 receive a severe check, which in too many cases 

 they never recover. A plantation thinned at inter- 

 vals of about five years, will yield one third more 



