176 REARING UP AND THINNING 



tree ; and to clear away any small spray shoots 

 from the lower part, so as to form a clear stem 

 or boll. If this ' pruning be properly done when 

 the trees are about eight or ten years old, when the 

 wood is in its softest stage, no damage will be done ; 

 and if the work be properly done at this stage, little 

 or no pruning will ever be afterwards required. 



The oak not being a rapid-growing tree at any 

 stage of its growth, as compared with many other 

 sorts of hard-wood trees, the young plants will not, 

 at eight or ten years' standing in a plantation, have 

 attained a large size, probably not above five or six 

 feet liigh; but if the firs which were planted among 

 them for the purpose of giving shelter have thriven 

 well, the oaks will be deriving benefit from their 

 shelter, and progressing rapidly. In fact, young 

 oaks never do come away well until such time as 

 the firs rise up around, and aftord them shelter ; 

 and more especially if the situation in which they 

 are planted be an exposed one, or the soil naturally 

 of a cold bottom. As an instance of the great 

 advantage gained by planting firs among young 

 oaks, in order to shelter them in their young and 

 tender state, and to bring them away as rapidly as 

 possible, I may mention a case which I witnessed 

 myself in one situation where I acted as assistant 

 forester. There we had about twenty acres of 

 rather stifiish clay ground converted into a plan- 

 tation, and it was situated upon what was con- 



