170 PARKS AND PLEASURE-GROUNDS. 



better to prevent the possibility of firs becoming prin- 

 cipals, to the injury of the scenery. With this view, 

 we have had hardwood, without firs, planted in masses 

 at four or four and a half feet apart. 



Pruning. — In the culture of forest trees, pruning 

 is, after planting, the most important operation. Its 

 object is the production of a large trunk or bole of 

 clean, sound timber ; and to accomplish this, the tree 

 is to be pruned so as to lead to the accumulation of 

 the principal bulk of the ligneous matter in the main 

 stem. This aim should be distinctly kept in view, in 

 every operation, whether in the removal or shortening 

 of the branches. Reduced to this general principle, 

 pruning is divested of all difficulty, at least when it is 

 commenced at an early period, and is regularly and 

 carefully prosecuted. After a shoot has been selected 

 for the main stem, all other shoots, which indicate a 

 tendency to draw off from it the leading growth, should 

 be shortened or removed. For some years after plant- 

 ing, it will be, for the most part, sufficient to fore- 

 shorten ; that is, to cut back the side-shoots from one- 

 third to two-thirds of their length, in order to discour- 

 age their growth in a lateral direction ; but this, is on 

 the supposition that the trees have taken with the 

 ground, and are in a thriving state. "Where hardwood 

 does not appear to thrive by the end of the second, or 

 at most the third season from planting, it is advisable, 

 in the following spring, to cut the trees to the ground ; 

 the result will be a number of vigorous shoots, of 

 which one should be selected for the future tree, and 

 the others removed. 



Where a plantation has grown well by the end of 

 the sixth or seventh year from planting, in addition to 



