THE COMMON LARCH. 511 



of air and light ; and again, if thinned at first and when 

 young to wide distances, so as to allow of the permanent 

 retention and free growth of all the lower branches, the 

 stem in that case becomes coarse and full of knots, and 

 of less value ; a mean, therefore, between the two extremes 

 is to be adopted, and the thinning so managed, that, at 

 the same time that the lower branches are permitted to 

 perform their important office long enough to ensure the 

 healthy and vigorous growth of the tree, their death should 

 gradually take place as the tree advances in height, so 

 as to leave it with a clean bole of twenty or thirty feet 

 in length, when it has attained maturity. If planted at 

 the rate of from three to four thousand trees to the acre 

 a first thinning will be required within eight or ten years, 

 when the weakest plants, to the extent of about a fourth 

 part, may be cut out ; a second thinning may be adminis- 

 tered from two to four years afterwards, and must be 

 repeated as the state of the trees may seem to require, 

 till they reach the age of thirty or thirty-five years, when 

 the last thinning should take place, leaving at this period 

 the trees destined to form the ultimate crop of large 

 timber from twelve to fifteen feet apart, as at this dis- 

 tance they have scope sufficient to attain maturity, and 

 dimensions large enough for naval purposes. 



In regard to the pruning of Larch, there appears to 

 be a diversity of opinion, some advocating the removal 

 of living branches, by annually cutting off, after the tree 

 has been planted four or five years, one or two tiers of 

 the lowermost branches, till the stem is bared for twenty 

 feet or upwards ; others, and, we believe, the majority of 

 writers upon the subject object to the removal of any 

 living branches, and insist that these should remain upon 

 the tree till they decay or die of themselves, as their 



