688 Hogg's Supplement to his Practical Treatise 



the primer's labour; since without both these no timber is 

 valued, except for veneers or other cabinetwork. Length 

 of stem and clearness of knots, whether dead or alive, con- 

 stitute the strength and value of timber ; and this is indirectly 

 admitted by the author himself, when he states that fine 

 straight boles are formed without the aid of the pruner, but, 

 notwithstanding, by what is equally efficient, viz. the proxi- 

 mity of other trees, or by the browsing animals of the park or 

 forest. By this admission, he not only shows the necessity, 

 but also the practicability, of judicious pruning, and thereby 

 overturns all he had advanced as condemnatory of the practice. 



That the oak sheds its spray, and the larch many of its 

 lower branches, whether standing alone or among other 

 trees, is well known ; but why is this circumstance noticed by 

 the writer ? Surely not as an argument against pruning ! 

 One would think it tells the other way : for what are all our 

 manipulations, in this and other processes in the management 

 of trees, but to assist nature to produce qualities as well as 

 quantities of her vegetable gifts ? 



Mr. Ballard must know, that, were the oak, beech, Spanish 

 chestnut, and many other kinds of trees permitted to stand 

 alone, untouched by the knife of the nurseryman the bill 

 of the forester, or the bite of cattle, they would only rise into 

 vast bushes, more bulky, perhaps, in the aggregate, but wholly 

 worthless to the builder. 



Without the least intention of giving offence, especially as 

 Mr. Ballard appears well acquainted with the structure of 

 timber, we would beg to ask, whether he would choose a beam 

 thirty or forty feet long, squared from a but that had never 

 been pruned, either by accident or design ? It is presumable 

 he would not ; for, even granting that the numerous knots 

 were all sound, the transverse strength of such a beam could 

 not be relied on. Mr. Ballard's antipruning principle is to- 

 tally inapplicable to young forest trees ; though he avers that 

 unpruned apple trees gain greater volume in a shorter time 

 than those that are got into form by pruning. Of this there 

 can be no doubt. 



Mr. Ballard appears to be an intelligent man; and, had he 

 confined his strictures to improper pruning, his opinions might 

 have been serviceable : but to condemn all pruning, as being 

 not only useless, but injurious, is an opinion with which but 

 few will coincide. — J. M. 



Hogg, Thomas, Florist, Paddington : A Supplement to the 

 Practical Treatise on the Culture of Florists' Flowers ; 

 containing additional Directions and improved Modes of 



