particularly of the Scotch Pine. 49 



In this awkward squad, besides men of the blue apron, there 

 will be not a few farm overseers, carpenters, cartwrights, &c., 

 who all were foresters before they were examined and found 

 wantinff. 



o 



I have no doubt that your able correspondent, Mr. How- 

 den, will pass ; but his new bill will not pass, unless it be 

 amended. He does not put a proper value on leaves and their 

 functions. He knows that the taste of grapes, gooseberries, 

 and other fruits, is not very palatable when the trees have 

 been stripped of their leaves either by man or beast ; and has 

 he not seen forest trees, whose leaves had been blasted in the 

 beginning of summer by storms, stunted in their growth ; 

 also beech, and other nonreproductive leaf trees, stunted for 

 years by severe pruning ? His stripping a tree of its leaves in 

 summer puts me in mind of a paper forwarded to the Lon- 

 don Horticultural Society, by Sir John Sinclair, from " Sir 

 Brook Boothby, then at Brussels ; to say, that he keeps his 

 peach trees free from the red spider by plucking off every leaf 

 the moment he sees any on it." On the other side, it must 

 be admitted that a tree can have too large a head ; and all 

 large rambling branches are robbers as well as feeders of the 

 tree. Such branches should be foreshortened, and are not to 

 be seen on a well-pruned tree. A newly transplanted tree, 

 shrub, or even a "cutting, may have too many leaves; by 

 which too much of its sap, in a dry season, is carried off by 

 evaporation before new spongioles can be formed to afford a 

 sufficient supply. 



We of the heath and fir covered mountains are still of opi- 

 nion that thick planting and timely thinning is the better treat- 

 ment of the pine tribe. I state, without fear of its being called 

 exaggeration, that, on an average, one man has upwards of a 

 million of those trees to care for, of all ages. If he get assist- 

 ance to thin, it is all he can expect, and all that is necessary * : 

 and the best Scotch pines ever grown in Scotland were nei- 

 ther pruned nor thinned. 



In the QiLarterly Journal of Agriculture, a year or two ago, 

 there is an essay on pruning deciduous trees, by a Mr. 

 Gavin Cree, nurseryman at Biggar. I know nothing of the 

 man, but his system appears to me to be of the very best; 

 and, were it generally followed, there would be less over- 



* Scotch firs, planted on a suitable soil, at 3| ft. distant, or 4500 per 

 Scotch acre, and properly managed in thinning, will be in general clean- 

 stemmed 20 or 30 ft. up before they are 30 ft. high, and of a size for 

 common rafters. Were a few extra men, with 30 ft. ladders, set to prune 

 200 acres of them higher, it would not pay, unless tJiey were of more 

 value than at present. — W. T. 



Vol. IX. — No. 42. e 



