84 ON THINNING PLANTATIONS. 
plants are always unequal in size and strength. This arises 
from the unequal strength of the seed ; not only in different 
cones, but in the same cone, some are far more strong and 
robust than others, and are produced in the centre—those at 
both the base and the apex are comparatively feeble. All 
these provisions of ‘nature appear to be framed to prevent 
trees of the same size and strength from pressing on each 
other, as in the ruinous struggle too often witnessed in planted 
woods. 
The pine and the larch, if once deprived of their lateral 
branches, have not the power of ever replacing them; hence 
the safeguards established by nature differ from those relating 
to trees in general, which have the power to furnish ample 
top and side branches to increase their diameter after losing 
their just proportions. It is therefore an absurd theory 
which advocates the practice of not thinning pine plantations 
on the plea that the native forests are not thinned, and yet 
arrive at maturity, yielding the finest timber. The destruc- 
tion of the tree by overcrowding had come under the notice 
of Gilpin in Forest Scenery, by Lauder, vol. i. p. 173. That 
writer makes the following interesting remarks :—“ All trees 
indeed, crowded together, naturally rise in perpendicular 
stems; but the fir has this peculiar disadvantage, that its 
lateral branches, once injured, never shoot again. A grove of 
crowded saplings, elms, beeches, or almost of any deciduous 
trees, when thinned, will throw out new lateral branches, and 
in time recover a state of beauty ; but if the education of the 
fir has been neglected, he is lost for ever.” 
Few descriptions of timber are more profitable or more 
readily sold than that adapted for railway sleepers, particu- 
larly larch timber; but without sufficient thinning it cannot 
be readily provided. 
I have just returned from inspecting a plantation for which 
I furnished a superintendent and plants thirty-two years ago. 
I recollected a portion of the ground being apparently well 
adapted for larch, and, at my suggestion, a space of about 
twenty acres, composed of a hazelly loam, with a subsoil of 
