SEASON OF PLANTING. 145 



to put from three to four thousand into the acre. 

 Of this number, a great part require to be thinned 

 out at an after period, in order that the rest may 

 have room to come to maturity. Such crowded 

 planting has, therefore, been censured, as a source 

 of needless expense and labour ; and to those who 

 take a superficial view of the matter, the practice 

 must no doubt appear sufficiently absurd. People, 

 however, who have more carefully considered the 

 subject, see it in a very different hght. When 

 trees are exposed to the full rigour of every blast 

 and hurricane, they are generally, even at their best, 

 crooked, unsightly, and dwarfish ; or they, at least, 

 possess these undesirable qualities in a far greater 

 degree, than when they enjoy protection from the 

 violence of the winds. Even the comparatively 

 insignificant size which they attain, is acquired by 

 extremely slow degrees. To prove these assertions, 

 it is only necessary to instance the case of trees which 

 stand solitary, and of those placed in hedge-rows or 

 in belts, all of which are universally found to be 

 inferior to such as are in precisely the same circum- 

 stances, with the single exception, that they grow 

 in extensive woods or forests. No reason can be 

 assigned for this difference, but that the latter have^ 



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