628 Thinning Plantations. 



so marked should not be deprived totally of shelter at once; 

 only a few trees should be taken down next to them, to give 

 room for allowing them to acquire proper form of head and 

 range of root for supplying nourishment, taking out nurses from 

 time to time, as those selected filled the space around them. 

 This would give the ground a clothed appearance during the 

 period that the trees were acquiring maturity. 



In the lower parts of the ground, groups might be trained to 

 become lofty timber trees where such might be desired ; but on 

 the banks, and near the street, trees should be left at proper 

 distances to assume their natural forms, and each group or mass 

 should consist of one genus, with the lowest-growing and most 

 ornamental species next the street ; and ample space should be 

 left ultimately, when all intervening trees were taken away, to 

 show each individual tree to advantage, surrounded by grass 

 touched by its descending branches. 



The thinnings absolutely necessary to be removed in the 

 meantime might, in such a town as Edinburgh, sell for billet 

 wood, and would more than cover the expense of labour ; or, 

 perhaps, some of the plants might be sold for the purpose of 

 giving immediate effect to villa grounds and lawns in the 

 vicinity of the town. Should any portion be destined to be 

 trained as timber trees, they would require a little judicious 

 pruning, as well as instant relief from their encroaching neigh- 

 bours. Those intended for what may be called lawn trees 

 would require no pruning, except where it was rendered ne- 

 cessary by the presence of decaying branches. Should these 

 operations be instantly gone about, Edinburgh may, at a future 

 period, be as famous for its lofty specimens of forest trees as is 

 Syon House at the present day ; but a few years' neglect, and 

 those fine trees, which now have the appearance of an unshorn 

 hedge, are irrecoverably lost, either for ornament or usefulness, 

 and their tall timber and branchless stems will set the powers 

 of nature and of art, to reduce them to goodly forms, at 

 defiance. 



Annat Cottage, Braes of Gowrie, Oct. 28. 1842, 



[We sincerely hope that the very judicious remarks contained 

 in Mr. Grorrie's article will not be lost on the Lord Provost and 

 town council of Edinburgh. It was, no doubt, a great step* 

 thirty years ago, to get trees planted in the Nor' Loch at all; and 

 the effect on us, when we first saw these plantations, in August, 

 1841, was like enchantment, as compared with the state of the 

 ground when we left Scotland. But it was not then customary 

 to pay much attention to the kinds of trees planted ; or to their 

 disposition in groups, or in such a manner as to have always 

 one kind prevailing in one place. Neither were the value of 



