136 THINNING. 



Indeed, trees grown either as small groups or nar- 

 row belts will not fulfil all the conditions laid down 

 for practical, profitable forestry. We have also orna- 

 mental forestry, differing from the other two in almost 

 every respect. Ornamental forestry comprises hedge- 

 row trees, lines, and groups distributed over the land- 

 scape, and single trees, so grown, either alone or so 

 combined, as to produce better known than definable 

 results. 



Experimental forestry is also another branch which 

 embraces the pinetum, shrubbery, and certain depart- 

 ments of the nursery. It is designed to grow trees 

 of new importation, to see what they will attain to, 

 find out how certain species of trees enjoy or dislike 

 each other's presence, how certain trees thrive in 

 different kinds of soil, &c. These are all interesting, 

 instructive, and important branches of forestry, and 

 should be studied and practised separately, and each 

 in accordance with the importance it demands. 

 ' If thinning were rightly understood and attended 

 to, pruning would be almost entirely unnecessary ; for 

 it is either from superabundance of room on the one 

 hand, or too limited space on the other, or from having 

 stood too closely together at one stage of their growth 

 and receiving too much room at another, that produces 

 most of the cases necessary for pruning. We shall 

 endeavour briefly to show how far and to what ex- 

 tent thinning is necessary in order to produce the 

 desired results of practical, profitable forestry. I have 

 stated that quantity is required — I mean quantity of 

 timber, not number of trees ; for while it is true that 

 two sixpences are equal in value to one shilKng, it does 

 not follow that two small trees are of equal value to 



