202 THINNING. 



ness they were making considering the suitable quality 

 of the soil and other favouring circumstances for their 

 more rapid growth. 



The error, mistake, or mismanagement of the planta- 

 tion was, in the first place, that of either planting too 

 close or being too late in thinning ; by the time the 

 hop-poles were cut out from amongst the telleurs, the 

 latter were too much drawn up, had lost all their side 

 branches to too great a height, and attained too great 

 height of stem in proportion to their girth. 



Another evil, also, was that of continuing thinning 

 after it could no longer benefit the trees. In all such 

 cases of overgrowth before thinning, and when the side 

 branches are killed, there is no longer any possibility 

 of ever making the trees become what they otherwise 

 would have been in regard to size ; therefore the next 

 best thing to do is to grow as many trees upon the 

 ground as can be properly done. If the trees cannot 

 be grown large — which they never can be if bereft of 

 their branches — the next object to aim at is to grow 

 more of them. The number on the ground at thirty 

 years old was about 400 to the acre; and of the size 

 and description they were, not a tree should have been 

 further thinned out till the plantation was cut at 150 

 years or so. The thinning in process was to reduce 

 the number to about 100 trees per acre, and that was 

 a very good aim under other circumstances ; but when 

 the trees were not of that description to be ever worth 

 £3 each, the aim should have been to make up the 

 deficiency by numbers — that is to say, by growing 

 three small trees at 20s. where the one at £3 should 

 have grown. 



There is a hardwood plantation of considerable in- 

 terest, from the results of thinning, on Faldonside 



