THINNING AND PRUNING 141 



left should stand at as regular intervals apart as possible. 

 Large crowned individuals, which exhibit too great a tendency 

 to dominate their fellows, should either be removed, or their 

 side branches shortened back to prevent their weaker neigh- 

 bours getting overtopped, and every effort made to prevent 

 gross individual growth at the expense of the general crop, 

 and height-growth should be encouraged at the expense of 

 ring-breadth. A crop grown in this way must be cut early, 

 — about the fiftieth year, for instance, in the case of larch or 

 fir, — for no great increase in ring-breadth takes place after 

 that period, and the crowns of the trees are not large enough 

 or strong enough to benefit from heavy thinning. It is, in 

 fact, a crop which the average forester, with only one idea on 

 the subject, would describe as ruined ; and ruined it is, so 

 far as the production of big timber is concerned, and any 

 attempt to bring about its further development would be 

 useless. But in pit-wood districts such crops pay a much 

 better rental for the ground they occupy than those grown 

 on long rotations, and in such districts profitable forestry 

 is often a different thing to what it would be under ordinary 

 conditions. 



In all cases where thinning is contemplated, some 

 consideration should be paid to what may be termed its 

 side-issues. The duty of the economic forester is supposed 

 to be that of making his woods pay ; and although the pro- 

 duction of first-class timber is usually the safest and surest 

 means of attaining this end, there is a possibility, in more 

 directions than one, of obtaining it at too great a cost, and 

 thus defeating the very object in view. For instance, fre- 

 quent and cautious thinnings, although undoubtedly correct 

 from a sylvicultural point of view, are seldom attended with 

 much profit when all expenses connected with them are 

 reckoned up. Apart from the extra trouble and expense 

 involved in marking the trees, and making small fellings over 

 large areas, must be reckoned the frequent damage that is 

 done to rides and drains in taking out the thinnings, and the 

 chronic state of untidiness which prevails where such work 

 is going on. Where the entire management of the woods is 

 conducted on pecuniary principles alone, untidiness may not 

 be a serious defect, but on residential estates their pro- 



