42 Preventive System of pruning Forest Trees. 



would be in future, for various purposes, valuable cedar -wood 

 of English growth. The same rules will apply to all the ever- 

 green and resinous trees that will thrive in this country. 



How beneficial would it be when applied to the hardy 

 Scotch and larch firs, in cold and exposed situations, by break- 

 ino 1 out the terminal buds and cutting in the terminal branches, 

 to form thick screens on the windward and exposed quarters 

 in such bleak situations, and in intermediate spaces in the 

 form of hedges. I am certain, very valuable close thick hedges, 

 for screens and shelter, might quickly be raised with Scotch 

 firs by this system ; also with spruce or larch firs. Such 

 screens would be of immense benefit to break the severe blasts 

 from trees of a more tender nature in their infancy, without 

 the danger of injuring them by their overgrowth and shade. 

 The o-ood to be derived in the interior of plantations promis- 

 cuously planted with different sorts of trees, by shortening in 

 of the branches, I have fully described in my publication. 

 Room is made for the more permanent and valuable trees ; 

 and at the same time are increased the bulk, height, and re- 

 gular tapering of the stem, similar to the larch and black Ita- 

 lian poplar in their natural mode of growth, only with branches 

 of smaller size towards the lower part of the trees. Far 

 different from where the side branches are suffered to extend 

 themselves, growing thick and long, causing great injurious 

 knots in the stems, and rendering the stems too thick at the 

 lower end in proportion to their height, and hardly sufficient for 

 any useful purpose : all which may be so easily avoided by my 

 system. This is a subject I am never tired of: it would fill a 

 volume to point out the immense national, as well as indivi- 

 dual, advantages that must result from the practice of the Bil- 

 lingtonian System, when it is properly matured, understood, 

 and practised ; which makes me so anxious to have it quickly 

 and universally known and practised. 



Mr. Cobbett, in his recent publication on planting, asserts 

 that no plants that are raised from layers, cuttings, grafts, or 

 suckers, will ever make fine useful trees : it will still be only a 

 limb or branch ; and a limb or branch, he maintains, is never 

 so good as a tree raised from the seed. But his own practice 

 completely refutes Ms opinion; for what is his tree but a branch, 

 after he has cut off the first shoot from the seed. Equally as 

 absurd is it to say that a branch or limb of a tree is not so good, 

 or of the same quality, as the trunk. What are those trees that 

 are frequently to be met with, with two or three trunks or 

 limbs from the same root, which were only branches at first, 

 when the main trunk lost its leading shoot ? As well might it be 

 said that a person's arms or legs are not of the same quality 



