188 



PRUNING AND THINNING. 



PT. IV. 



and before tliey are actually killed, tliey should be 

 removed with a common saw, set wide for the pur- 

 pose ; and the axe and cross-cut saw should gradually 

 and annually thin tlie plants out to greater distances 

 from each other. Timber may thus be reared without 

 a single disunited knot ; and if we suppose the side- 

 boughe to be taken off each, where the stem is 

 eighteen inches in girth, without a symptom even of 

 a cross-grain, at a greater distance than three inches 

 from the centre, the rest of the entire mass of timber 

 will be without a vestige of a knot, or even of a cross- 

 grain. If the plants are left too close, weak poles will 

 be grown ; if they are left too wide apart, too many 

 and too large side-boughs will be developed. 



Supposing perfect shelter and perfect room to- 

 gether, almost all trees will make a good fight on 

 almost all soils : but it may be laid down as a general 

 rule that, where shelter is given, room is not ; that 

 plantations are always planted too thick to grow, and 

 are never thinned ; that in plantations the nurse 

 pianta- alwavs ovcr-lics the child. It is not meant here to 



tions are 



be pitntecf ^bject to planting plantations too thick to grow : they 



glw"and° should bc planted too thick to grow, and then thinned, 



thinned taking the worst plant worst placed, and leaving the 



■every year. 



best plant best placed ; regard being had to what is 

 likely to suit the soil best, and what is intended to be 

 grown permanently. In this way, not only is the 

 ground cropped^ not only is profit made by the thin- 

 ning, and not only are unduly large side-boughs dis- 



