Preventive System of •pruning Forest Trees. 37 



book, in which the process and results are amply and clearly 

 detailed, with a view, if possible, of stopping or checking that 

 widely extended pernicious system of divesting young trees of 

 their side branches. 



Since the publication of that work, the public attention has 

 been considerably excited on the mode adopted for planting 

 the royal forests, regarding which blame has attached where 

 it ought not, but on that subject I intend to explain at a future 

 time ; and likewise upon the after-management and pruning 

 of the young trees, which is, above all others, of more para- 

 mount and lasting consequence, than the mere planting of the 

 trees by any system. Having discovered and proved it by 

 my own experiments, I disclosed to the British public the 

 gross error of that system of pruning, by cutting off the side 

 branches from young trees, and the vast superiority of my 

 system of shortening, or cutting in, the branches, whereby 

 the number of branches are increased, and their tendency to 

 increase in thickness greatly diminished, with the quicker in- 

 crease of the stem as it respects thickness, length, regular taper- 

 ing, and superior quality of the timber, as I have clearly pointed 

 out in my publication. Yet I have seen in some later publications 

 a good deal said about my system of pruning, and an endea- 

 vour to keep what I have found out by my own actual observ- 

 ations and experience, and communicated to the public, and to 

 represent what I have said and published on that subject, as 

 being the opinions and practice of others, who are to be 

 brought forward by and by as the first who invented, prac- 

 tised, and published the system, when it is probable they might 

 have read my book, which may have strengthened and con- 

 firmed their ideas on the subject. Thus keeping me in the 

 background, without ever mentioning what I have said on 

 the subject, though the system, as far as it is understood, has 

 been much extolled. Now it is clear I was the first to publish 

 it, and give instructions to gentlemen and others how it should 

 be performed ; but more of this at some future time. 



As my ideas are now more mature and confirmed on that 

 most important part of the art termed pruning, but which I 

 think would be better termed a preventive from pruning, I 

 beg to offer a few more remarks on it, hoping to call the atten- 

 tion of every lover of woods and planter of trees to the sub- 

 ject ; for, without that after-management, they will generally 

 find themselves sorely disappointed in various points of view. 

 My method I shall take the liberty, in imitation of a recent 

 writer on planting, who appears fond of introducing new 

 terms, to call the Billingtonian System of pruning, training, &c, 

 a name which has been applied to it by a great lover of trees, 



d 3 



