154 THE KEARING OF 



and never to cut away many trees at one time, but 

 merely such as are actually doing injury to others 

 of more value than themselves. By this method of 

 procedure, the plantations so dealt with never re- 

 ceive any sensible check, and are kept in a con- 

 stantly healthy growing state, and always produce 

 much more timber at the end of any given period of 

 years, than plantations managed upon an opposite 

 principle. 



When a young hard-wood plantation has arrived 

 at the age of twenty-five or thirty years, it is very 

 probable that the firs may be dispensed with alto- 

 gether, in order to give the hard-wood all justice for 

 the expansion of their trunks ; but if the situation 

 happen to be an exposed one, it will be a point of 

 wisdom to have a considerable portion of the firs left 

 standing upon the most exposed side or sides of the 

 plantation — they are more hardy than the hard- 

 wood sorts, and, when growing upon the outside of a 

 wood, they form a protection to more valuable trees 

 in the interior. 



I have already stated elsewhere, that hard-wood 

 trees, when growing in a forest, should stand at a 

 distance corresponding to about one half the height 

 of the trees respectively ; but, properly speaking, 

 there can be no specific rule laid down for guidance 

 upon this point, for much depends upon the nature 

 of the soil. In a strong loamy soil well adapted to 

 the rearing of forest trees, I have seen excellent 



