FART VIII. PICTURESQUE PLANTING. 56 1 



been five or six years planted, and continue until they are 

 nearly full grown. In general, no tree should be divested of all 

 its side branches. A sufficient number of small ones should 

 always be left to circulate the sap through the tree. The 

 branches of resinous trees never attain a timber size, which 

 shews that their chief use is to serve this purpose. In the fir 

 and pine tribe their number and importance may be accounted 

 for, from the sudden ascent of the sap, and the singular largeness 

 of the alburnous vessels in these trees. Hence in this tribe no 

 side branches should be removed, until they shew evident marks 

 of decay. 



Where pruning is attended to, it is most commonly overdone ? 

 which I have formerly endeavoured to shew must materially 

 injure the timber, as well as the characteristic beauty of the tree. 

 The happy medium, either in books or practice, is seldom 

 fixed on; and trees are too often either left to contend with 

 whatever injuries or diseases may come in their way r or so mu- 

 tilated and deformed by the forest pruner as to be unfit to per- 

 form their proper functions: the consequence of the first is 

 unsound timber; of the second, timber of bad quality, and perpe- 

 tual deformity of shape. Better proof cannot be given than the 

 tall, naked elms, pollard oaks, and naked fir woods, that prevail 

 in many parts of England, and frequently disfigure whole dis- 

 tricts of the country. The timber of those species of trees,. 



4 c 



