SNAGGmff OR LOPPING. 



403 



to occur, and the practice is now employed by first-class 

 foresters only under very special circumstances. 



3. Snagging or Lopping. — Ignorant woodmen, when called 

 upon to remove a branch, lop it off nearly down to the trunk 

 which produced it. More skilful men cut it off at some distance 

 from the trunk, leaving a spray on it to keep it alive ; but the 

 spray is apt to die, and then the more skilful practice becomes 

 undistinguishable from the woodman's lopping. The first is 

 merely a foreshortening, which cannot be 

 made to preserve a permanent effect and 

 fails in its iatention. "When this happens 

 it is the worst of all known methods of 

 pruning, the effect of which is represented 

 in the accompanying cuts. The knots in 

 deal are well known ; when a squared piecQ 

 of deal is converted into planking, it is 

 sometimes full of knots which drop out as at 

 Fig. LXXXVII. These are sections of dead 

 or dying branches which became imbedded 

 in sound wood in consequence of their 

 having been left by nature in the un- 

 pruned, closely-packed natural forest. Had 

 such branches been removed, no faults like these would have 

 been discoverable. They sometimes render deals almost 

 worthless. 



The consequence of leaving snags is exhibited at Fig. 

 LXXXVIII., which fully illustrates the meaning of the follow- 

 ing opinions. 



" There is a method of pruniBg," said Mr. Sandys, the 

 skilful and experienced forester at Holkham, " still practised 

 by some persons, of leaving a foot or more of the branch on 

 the tree to die and rot off, which if only an inch in diameter 

 may take several years to accompKsh, during which time the 

 stem increases, and when the sirnnp falls down, a hole is left as 

 deep as the tree has grown since the snagging, which hole must 

 have t^me tofiU up after the rotten branch is gone. The healing 

 of the wound IS consequently deUyed, and the defect in the timber 

 greater. Instead of taking off a large branch by the stem, a great 



Pig. LXXXVII. 



D D 2 



