Preventive System of pruning Forest Trees. 39 



down the stem ; for, as the branches increase, so do the roots ; 

 and, vice versa, if the branches be few and straggling, so will 

 the roots. If there is no unnatural cause to destroy the 

 branches, then by following up this simple easy process, from 

 10 to 15 or 20 years, according to circumstances, we may raise 

 the stem of a tree to any height that may be desirable, before it 

 is permitted to branch out in all its native beauty and wildness ; 

 or we may dispose its future form to any use or in any way 

 fancy or taste may dictate, as I have fully explained in my pub- 

 lication. At the same time, those branches that have been 

 shortened, and prevented from being extended, or " cut in " 

 (if that should be thought a more appropriate term), when 

 young, are rendered, by that simple and easy operation, un- 

 able to acquire that degree of thickness which would injure 

 the quality of the future timber when converted to use ; as there 

 would be none of those great knots which are so unsightly and 

 often injurious when timber is worked up for cabinet or other 

 purposes. Those small branches, besides contributing so ma- 

 terially to the increase of the stem, roots, and quality of the 

 timber, &c, render it more hardy, and fitter for more open 

 and exposed situations, if it should be desirable to transplant 

 any of them from where they may be too thick, instead of cut- 

 ting them down, or, what is more likely to happen, when they 

 become more exposed by thinning, especially where fir trees 

 are removed. By this system, the trees acquire a strength of 

 stem and roots in proportion to their tops, and also a hardi- 

 ness to enable them to stand the cold and stormy winds. 



Moreover, as they may be trained to any length of straight 

 stems as single trees, in hedge-rows and exposed situations, by 

 following up the system long enough, the advantages it would 

 be of to proprietors of land, where it would not be advisable 

 to make plantations, are incalculable, as adapted to planting in 

 hedge-rows, with the least possible injury to the land. In the 

 hedge-rows of arable pasture and meadow land, how desirable 

 would it be to have fine, tall, straight, handsome, and useful 

 timber trees, instead of those low, spreading, shrub-like, use- 

 less trees (except for fuel), which are generally to be found in 

 hedge-rows at the present day, and which are such a continual 

 annoyance to the occupiers, from their unsightliness and the 

 great injury they do to the crops by their excessive spread of 

 boughs so near to the ground ! I would here observe, that 

 when hedge-rows are planted, trees should be chosen whose 

 roots do not run near the surface, or produce suckers. 

 Besides their ungraceful appearance, such ill formed trees are 

 very injurious to the public roads, and often very troublesome 

 to the traveller, when they are suffered to branch out in low, 



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