THE NEW FORESTRY. 149 



of the rotation period, when the final crop is swept away. 

 Density, or crowding, is aimed at from the first in order to shut 

 out the light and air from the lower branches and cause their 

 decay, and at the same time to hasten height-growth, even if 

 it produces attenuated stems in the early stages of growth. 

 In thinning, the operator looks up, and if the removal of a tree 

 is going to make a gap overhead, it is left. The consequence 

 of regulating the trees in this way is, that although the trees 

 may have been planted at regular distances at first, they do not 

 all progress at the same rate, and after one or two thinnings, 

 regulated by the condition of the tops, the trees become irregu- 

 larly distributed over the ground, standing in little groups, of 

 threes, fours, and fives, not far apart, even at maturity. Plate 

 No. 4 shows this very plainly in the way the fine cylindrical 

 trunks are grouped together. In the best managed German 

 forests a comparatively small head of live branches is considered 

 sufficient to build up a tree of useful dimensions, and trees of 

 great girth are not aimed at, and could not be produced in 

 rotation period allowed. The first thinning or " cleaning," as 

 it is called, is usually deferred till the trees are from twenty-five 

 to thirty years of age, in the case of firs, or even longer, and 

 a considerably longer period is allowed for beech and other 

 broad-leaved species. Before the first thinning is executed 

 (see Plate No. 1), the forest looks just in that condition 

 which foresters in this country would regard as utterly 

 neglected and almost irreparably damaged by crowding, 

 but which the German forester regards as perfectly 

 satisfactory, pointing to his mature forest as proof 

 of the excellence of the system. In the first thinning 

 only the wastrels and dead trees are removed, but the 

 dead branches on the trees left are not interfered with. 

 From this stage the growth is more carefully watched, and 

 although little or no pruning is attempted, top-growth begins 

 to assert itself sufficiently to add annually a sensible layer of 

 timber to the attenuated stems, which eventually develop' into 

 tall cylindrical trunks of good girth. We measured beech 

 trees of mature age, growing at about sixteen hundred feet 

 elevation, that had a circumference of sixty-eight inches at five 

 feet from the ground, and at about ninety feet up a circum- 

 ference of only about ten inches less, the trunks being clear 

 to that height This was in the Hartz Mountains, in a late and 

 cold locality. 



The degree of density varies a little according to circum- 

 stances and the species. Professor Schlich, in his Manual, vol. 



