Cruichhank's Practical Planter. 463 



handle while the spade is in the second-made notch, till the 

 first becomes wide enough to receive the roots of the plant. 

 Fifty years ago, the planting-iron was introduced. It is de- 

 scribed by Sang as the diamond dibber (Encyc. of Gard., 

 § 6845. ) : "In this way, an expert workman will plant between 

 3000 and 4000 young plants a day ; and do it so perfectly, 

 that the fault will not be his, if a single individual of the whole 

 number fail to grow." It is, at least, six or seven times 

 cheaper than the original mode of slit-planting ; " and, in 

 fact, renders planting as economical a process as it seems pos- 

 sible to make it." " I have assisted in planting, according to 

 this plan, upwards of 3000 acres in Aberdeenshire alone." 

 The reader will observe, however, that this system is re- 

 stricted to the pine and fir tribes, not exceeding the age of two 

 years. Where shelter is wanted, the Scotch pine should be 

 planted as a nurse ; sometimes the larch, and occasionally 

 broom and furze already on the ground, may do. 



Chap. VII. Management. The fallacy of Pontey's as- 

 sertions respecting pruning the pine and fir tribes is forcibly 

 pointed out : — 



" Independently of any other consideration, the very form in which a fir 

 grows appears sufficient to teach us that pruning, if not attended with 

 actual injury, can at least be productive of no benefit to the tree. An ash, 

 or an elm, for example, has a constant tendency, if left to itself, to depart 

 from the shape which constitutes its chief value. It is continually throwing 

 out branches, which become rivals to the leader, and either bend it out of 

 its upright course, or starve it, by exhausting an undue quantity of sap, and 

 thereby disqualifying it for carrying up the tree. Hence the great use of 

 pruning trees of this kind is to protect the leader from the rivalship of the 

 other branches, to the end that as much of the nourishment drawn from the 

 earth may be employed in promoting the growth of the stem, and as little 

 of it expended on the top, a part which is comparatively of little value, as 

 is consistent with the laws of vegetation. But, in the case of firs, this use 

 of pruning has no place. Their horizontal branches never interfere with 

 the leader, nor obstruct its progress in the smallest degree. It always, 

 unless broken accidentally, or killed by the frost, appears above the most 

 elevated of the horizontal shoots ; and they, instead of injuring or sup- 

 planting, seem to assist it in keeping its perpendicular position, as those of 

 the same elevation grow of equal length all around it, and produce a perfect 

 equilibrium. Hence it would appear that the pruning of firs, supposing it 

 harmless, can yet be productive of no positive good, so that to practise it 

 would be to labour and lay out money for no end; a species of industry and 

 expenditure which deserves any epithet but that of rational. 



" Harmless, however, the process in question is far from being, and I have 

 known more than one thriving fir plantation utterly ruined by it. Mr. Pon- 

 tey tells us, that it is the cutting off too many branches at once that causes 

 injury, and that, if we take away only two or three tiers at a time, no bad 

 effect will ensue. Let any person remove this number of living branches 

 from a Scots fir, or spruce, of seven or eight years old ; let him, at the 

 same time, ascertain its height, and mark some of the plants contiguous to 

 it, which are exactly of the same size. By measuring it and them three 

 years afterwards, and comparing the progress of the former, made in this 



