40 Preventive System of pruning Forest Trees. 



spreading, shrub-like heads, which seldom attain to any con- 

 siderable height; and when it becomes necessary to divest 

 them of any of their great overgrown side boughs with the 

 axe or saw, they become most unsightly things, and are 

 generally good for very little when finally cut down. Any 

 persons who have travelled much on the public roads must 

 have observed this, if the contemplation of trees ever entered 

 their minds ; and how easily such evil consequences might be 

 obviated, if the Billingtonian System were rightly understood 

 and practised ! All commissioners of roads ought to know it 

 and have it practised ; and hence the necessity of an Arbori- 

 cultural Society, as suggested in my publication, for the im- 

 provement of the backward state of the much neglected art 

 of arboriculture, and for the improvement and instruction 

 of persons to perform or direct such operations. Then we 

 might hope to see the art universally known and practised 

 in this empire, otherwise it will be long before the prevailing 

 errors are rooted out, and a better system prevails ; then we 

 might have handsome trees by the sides of the public roads, 

 with fine, clear, straight stems of any height that might be 

 thought advisable for such situations, when they would branch 

 out into lofty branching heads, which would form an agreeable 

 shady canopy in summer, while through the stems the air 

 w r ould circulate to dry the roads after rains ; and in winter, 

 when most wanted, the more horizontal rays of the sun would 

 shine below the branches, to comfort the traveller, and dry 

 the roads. It is astonishing how soon trees will attain a great 

 height, with strength of stem, when my system is pursued, by 

 preventing the side branches from extending too far and 

 getting too large, and by encouraging one leading shoot to 

 form the main trunk. 



When the side branches have performed all their necessary 

 functions, and the tree is sufficiently advanced in height and. 

 magnitude to do without them, they may be taken off, to 

 render the stem clear and free from knots, similar to those 

 trees that grow in the interior of woods, and have been 

 divested of their side branches by natural causes. The 

 branches of some sorts of trees would probably die of them- 

 selves when the top gets above to shade them, but not gene- 

 rally, because of the free access of light to the stems ; so that 

 in such open situations they would have to be removed by the 

 knife, as by my system the branches would never be much 

 thicker than a man's thumb when taken off. 



But of as still great importance would it be if introduced 

 in coppices of underwood, where every shoot necessary to be 

 left might be trained and wonderfully improved for the various 



