PART VIII. 



PICTURESQUE PLANTING. 



585 



will not turn out one half, frequently not one fourth, so pro- 

 fitable or beautiful as they might. 



A judicious attention to the preparation of the soil previously 

 to planting, to the Culture of it, and to training and thinning 

 the trees afterwards, is of rnore consequence to the prosperity 

 of the plantation, than most men imagine. The progress which 

 trees have made under the management of some gentlemen 

 who have attended to these circumstances, is hardly credible*. 

 But there are very few indeed who attend to these particulars; 

 • and hence few experience that success which results from pro- 

 per planting. Some prepare the soil before planting, and in- 

 close well ; but when this is over, imagine all is done, and pay 

 no attention to training and thinning, though, the more thriv- 

 ing the plantation, the more this operation becomes necessary. 

 Others plant in rough, uncultivated ground, where many of the 

 trees very soon die ; and the rest, perhaps scarcely alive, re- 

 main for a great many years, until at last they overcome the 

 natural rubbish ; and then probably some attention is paid to 

 thinning and pruning them ; or perhaps these operations are 



* I allude to their progress the first eight or ten years after planting, which is ge- 

 nerally the period wherein plantations make least progress. Let it be remembered, 

 that when advising culture of the soil, I always suppose the tree planted as much 

 as is practicable in its natural state, or in a more unfavourable one. Such culture 

 will never injure the quality of the wood, since, soon after the trees cover the sur- 

 face, they are in the same state as if no culture had been given. The effects of too 

 much shelter and of pruning are very different. — See Chap. II. Sect. 2. 



