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which are to form the future head of the tree become 

 enlarged, and are able to take upon themselves the entire 

 support of the lower portion of their trunks. 



Upon single trees, or where the Oak stands free and 

 unencumbered, the pruning knife must be used with the 

 greatest caution, and only at an early stage of growth, 

 when it may be necessary to remove a second leader, 

 or to curtail a side branch that threatens to interfere 

 with the form and destroy the balance of the plant ; for 

 being naturally a wide-spreading tree, the lopping of the 

 side branches in order to give length of stem, as directed 

 and recommended by some writers, is certain not only 

 to destroy its characteristic beauty and grandeur of form, 

 but to prove most injurious to its growth, as the tree is 

 thereby deprived of those very members upon which its 

 health and vigour mainly depend, not to mention the 

 risk of producing early decay by taint received through 

 the medium of the wounds caused by the excision of the 

 branches. 



Timber for naval purposes, we must also bear in mind, 

 is not confined to planking, or that portion of the tree 

 produced by a long straight trunk ; the knees and bends 

 formed by the angles the side branches and limbs make 

 with the main stem of the tree, are also of paramount 

 importance in naval architecture, and these are always 

 procured in the greatest perfection from trees that have 

 grown in their natural and expansive form, and hence 

 it is that hedge-row Oak in general affords so large a 

 supply of this valuable denomination of timber. 



By some of our arboricultural authors, hints have been 

 thrown out and schemes proposed to obtain by artificial 

 means the various bends and angles required in ship- 

 timber ; but however ingenious some of these plans may 



