626 Thinning Plantations. 



Art. VII. On thinning Plantations. By Archibald Gorrie, 



F.H.S., &c. 



The frequency wherewith ill-managed plantations of forest 

 trees meet the eye in every direction, all over the country, may 

 render any attempt to point out the neglect a little hazardous, 

 and in many instances unsuccessful. It very often happens that 

 all the sympathies of the proprietor are in favour of allowing all 

 trees, in anything like a thriving condition, to remain. Few 

 proprietors have had leisure or inclination to study the subject 

 so closely as to enable them clearly to foresee the consequence 

 either of judicious thinning, or its neglect. In some, a wish to 

 make something of the thinnings prevents the operation being 

 entered upon till such mischief has occurred as even time, with 

 skilful management, cannot altogether remedy. Hence the 

 almost branchless skeletons of forest trees that in close order 

 disfigure the demesnes around many a country seat, where such 

 management is scarcely excusable. In forests, where very large 

 masses have been planted in one or two seasons, the supply of 

 thinnings may exceed the demand in a contiguous market, and 

 the forester's account of expense for thinning and pruning may, 

 in such cases, exceed the proceeds of the sale. From the same 

 causes, we often see on the lawn groups of trees planted Avith 

 the full intention on the part of the planter, in the outset, that 

 the nurses should be timely removed, to allow those trees in- 

 tended ultimately to adorn the grounds to assume their na- 

 tural forms : but these very nurses are, in nine cases out of ten, 

 allowed to become robbers, excluding the light and the air from 

 those trees which they were at first only intended to shelter 

 while young, and sucking up the food from the soil that should 

 go to foster the reserves ; so that nurses and nursed soon indi- 

 cate, by their tall, slender, and leafless shanks, that they have 

 outlived the means of nourishment, and entirely defeated the 

 purposes of the planter. It were easy to point out many places 

 where the lawn is disfigured by stiff outlines of plantations, 

 enclosing masses of miserable trees struggling for light and air 

 till scarcely a leaf remains on the summit of the sapless pole to 

 elaborate the sap, whereof the numerous matted roots of too 

 many contending neighbours prevent anything like a full 

 supply. There are a few exceptions, but they are still too few 

 to furnish sufficient stimulating examples to proper manage- 

 ment. One would think that in such a city as Edinburgh, the 

 metropolis of Caledonia, the seat of learning, the " Modern 

 Athens," any small patches of trees would afford a specimen of 

 the very ne plus ultra of skilful management in bringing forward 

 the trees to form beau ideal specimens, whether for ornament or 

 utility. But no ; just look along Prince's Street, and you will 



