382 Oft the Cultivation of 



are suitable, and underwood is wanted as a cover for game, or 

 for other valuable purposes, that the hazel has been freely 

 planted : in general about three nurses to one principal will be 

 a due proportion, probably the birch and larch may have taken 

 the lead, and it may be proper to begin the thinning with them. 

 No specific rule, however, can be given for this operation, as it 

 will depend on the relative growth of the plants. The principals 

 should always be kept clear, so that the branches of the nurses 

 do not overhang or interfere with them. As it will frequently 

 happen that the removal of a nurse plant might expose the 

 principal too much, in such case let such branches of the former 

 as encroach upon the latter be foreshortened, or cut in, for the 

 present, so as to give sufficient light and air, to the end that the 

 plant may not be drawn or forced up unduly, and may possess 

 a proper strength of stem to resist the winds and maintain itself 

 in vigour. It will not fail to strike the reader, that plants may 

 be left closer in exposed situations than in sheltered ones ; sud- 

 den exposure, at all times hurtful, should be sedulously guarded 

 against : hence an annual, or, at most, a biennial thinning, ought 

 not to be neglected, so that the plants may enjo} 1, as nearly as 

 possible a uniform temperature, by which they will be kept in a 

 constantly growing state. This process being regularly carried 

 on for fifteen or twenty years, the whole of the fir tribe will be 

 removed, except on spots where, from the occasional failure of 

 other plants, it may have been proper to retain them, or on the 

 ontsides of the plantation, where they may be left for shelter or 

 for ornament. 



Thus, with due attention to close pruning in the early stage, 

 and judiciously combining with it the terminal or foreshortening 

 system (seldom removing more than what one year's growth will 

 make good), and foreshortening where necessary, keeping the 

 heads of the principal plants clear, and taking care also that they 

 do not suffer from the side branches of others, good timber, free 

 from the common defects occasioned by injudicious management, 

 may be expected, and will, in all cases where the plant has been 

 suited to the soil, be the result. 



In the coniferous trees, or fir tribe, various opinions have also 

 been given on the required management in regard to pruning. 

 The great defect in the timber of this class of trees is the knot, 

 which can only be obviated by pruning. But this requires to be 

 done with much discretion. Even when planted thick by nature's 

 hand, it is many years before the under branches decay and fall 

 off: and in some of the species, after the branch has ceased to live, 

 it will remain for many years as a peg, before it drops clean off 

 so that the wound may be healed over. [See in p. 293.] If 

 planted at 4 ft. apart, and on suitable soil, in five or six years they 

 will require the pruning-knife ; and, as in the case of deciduous 



