PT. IV. 



PRUNING AND THINNING. 



195 



they are ! * Nay, if circumstances permit, trees will 

 throw out brandies to an indefinite extent below the 

 ground on ^vhich they stand. This may be seen on the 

 side of a chalk-pit, or any other bank sufficiently 

 precipitous to prevent the browsing of cattle. The 

 branchless stem is the result of injury from the hand of 

 man, or beast, or neighbouring trees. The single 

 exception to this rule is the Italian pine ; and a most 

 beautiful and a most picturesque object the branchless 

 stem is ! This Claude and Salvator, and all landscape 

 painters, show us. And, as I have said, for beauty we 

 should have every variety of growth ; but if we desire 

 profit^ if we desire clean timber, we must not go to 

 nature for it. Clean timber is no more a product of 

 nature than a field full of clean wheat is. Nature's 

 sole mode of pruning is killing the branches ; and the 

 timber of the Italian pine, the only branchless stem 

 formed by nature, is more full of flaws and huge 

 movable knots, than the timber of any other tree 

 whatever. But in all cases except the Italian pine 

 accident, not nature, produces the branchless stem. 



* In artificial gardens and lawns in general, these boughs 

 are prevented from lying on the ground on account of the con- 

 venience of mowing. In nature they are prevented from even 

 reaching the ground by neighbouring growth or cattle ; but 

 where they are allowed to come down to the ground they will 

 layer themselves in a circle round the tree and grow straight 

 upright, so as even to smother their own parent. Many most 

 beautiful and most curious instances of this may be seen at 

 Wardour Castle, especially among the red cedar tribe. 



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