24!8 CULTURE AND MANAGEMENT OF OAK. 



In answer to this, it may be remarked, that five 

 hundred will have sufficient room on an acre, till the 

 trees be worth on an average 10s. or 12s. each. 

 Suppose, then, that the first thinning takes place 

 when the trees are of this value, and that a hundred 

 of them are cut down to give scope to the rest, their 

 price will amount to L. 50, a sum in comparison of 

 which the expense of planting, pruning, and felling 

 them, dwindles into nothing. At each successive 

 thinning, the trees will be greatly increased in va- 

 lue, so that by the time they are reduced to the 

 number which will have room to come to full matu- 

 rity, a very considerable sum will be realised. This, 

 it is evident, would not be the case, were only one 

 hundred, the number supposed capable of reaching 

 their full growth, originally planted. It is true that, 

 in the last mentioned circumstances, the nurses, or 

 part of them, might be allowed to stand longer, but 

 that would be less gainful, because an oak that 

 grows well, will, from the superior value of its wood 

 and bark, be worth more when forty or fifty years 

 old, than a Scots fir or larch raised on the same soil 

 of equal age. " But, if this is the case, why limit 

 the number of oaks to five hundred per acre ? 

 Might we not plant a thousand, or fifteen hundred, 

 and thus derive a still greater profit from the plan- 



