CULTIVATION. 17 



young tree, be formed, and compete for the mastery ; or when any of 

 the horizontal or side branches are gaining such an ascendency as 

 to interfere with the proper balance and deportment of the plant or 

 tree ; but even in such instances I use a milder term than prune, and 

 practise what I call pinching, i.e., that nothing more than a branchlet 

 — a one year's shoot, or a two year old branch, should ever be cut from 

 a fir or pine, if it be grown solely for its timber ; for all indiscriminate 

 branch-cutting of them, is neither more nor less than destructive to 

 good and sound timber ; and if any fir or pine tree ever arrive at 

 such a state as to require such cutting, the best remedy is to lay 

 the axe or saw to its base and cut it down as a cumberer of the 

 ground, and make the most of its contents; for if it be subjected 

 to such branch-cutting, it will never after produce good or valuable 

 timber. 



Pruning, however, when considered in connection with decoration, 

 and when the design is to obtain ornamental firs or pines, or to cultivate- 

 them as useful trees, irrespective of the quality of their timber when 

 matured, then we have a wider scope and more cause for branch or 

 limb cutting. Viewed from this point, pruning is at times not only 

 pardonable but necessary, inasmuch, as it frequently happens that some 

 obtruding branches may prevent us from enjoying some favourite drive, 

 footpath, or view ; or, that underneath the ambrosial shade of some 

 majestic pine or fir we have our rustic summer-house, or out-door 

 lounge, or it may be some beautiful flower, or favourite shrub ; and the 

 hundred and one other instances, where the fir and pine boughs are 

 intruders : Must we, indeed, because such is the case, cut down our 

 noble and beautiful firs and pines 1 Xay, art and beauty are now our 

 study, and art rules should regulate and correct art defects; for such 

 rules, when properly applied, by a practitioner who knows liow to 

 correct the disorders he prunes for, will be attended with many good and 

 few injurious results to the subjects operated upon ; will increase 

 our pleasures, and enltirge our ideas of all that is good and beautiful in 

 wild ^Nature, when controlled by refined art. In this, however, as in 

 many other fine art works, the old proverb, " a little knowledge is a 

 dangerous thing," is often truthfully illustrated in the inelegant 

 hacking to which ornamental firs and pines are at times subjected by 

 some reckless pruner; for, when such is the case, methinks that the 

 other collateral old adage, " ignorance is bliss," if a paradox, is no less 

 an untruth. 



As a matter of course, in art culture of the firs and pines; such as 



c 



