314. OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 
locality, equally good results will be obtainable 
from the same tree in quite a different part 
of the country. Allowances must be made for 
climatic conditions as well as for soil and sub- 
soil. In the woods, too, that can be regenerated 
naturally, and have thus sown themselves time 
after time for centuries past, overthinning has 
likewise been habitual. In great measure due, 
no doubt, to almost immemorial custom for the 
browsing of deer and the formation of coverts 
and thickets for game of all sorts in past days, 
this too free use of the axe in immature woods 
was also more recently meant to hasten on the 
increase of the trees in girth, thus overlooking 
the fact that the chief profit in timber-growing 
depends far less on the sum obtainable for a 
comparatively small number of large trees than 
on the sum total per acre obtainable for the 
whole crop of wood of marketable size. The 
direct consequence of this arboricultural treat- 
ment has, of course, been the development of 
a large crown and big branches. This, though 
adding to the beauty of the tree as a natural 
object, distinctly decreases what would otherwise 
be its market value as so many cubic feet of 
