The Thinning of Woods. 



293 



otherwise have been desirable. So far as there can be said 

 to have been any rule about the matter of thinning, it was 

 considered that the proper distance to be maintained 

 between trees varied from about one-third of their height in 

 the case of Larch, Firs, and Pines, to about the full height 

 of the tree for broad-leaved kinds like Oak, Elm, or Ash. 



Views of the above nature are now beginning to give place 

 to others more in accordance with economic forestry, or 

 " Sylviculture," as practised on the Continent. Many land 

 owners have realised, or are now realising, that material 

 advantage— apart from aesthetic considerations — lies less in 

 arboricultural treatment of the individual tree than in 

 management of the entire crop of timber in such a manner that 

 it may bring in the maximum monetary return per acre and 

 per annum without exhausting the soil or causing its capital 

 value, as measured by its productivity, to become deterio- 

 rated. 



Now that large areas have been thrown out of arable culti- 

 vation and transformed into pasture, the poorer qualities oi 

 the grass lands are sometimes so unprofitable as to leave no 

 other alternative than either utilising them for the growth of 

 timber or allowing them to revert into rough hill pastures. 

 Where new plantations are being formed on land of this sort, 

 good returns can only be obtained if the economic aspects of 

 timber production are duly considered ; and even with regard 

 to many existing woods, much improvement could be effected 

 by the study and the application of the simple principles 

 upon which the Continental system of thinning woods is 

 based. The principles themselves are simple enough, though 

 their correct application is often difficult in practice. 



The class of timber which it is now most remunerative to 

 cultivate as woodland crops is long straight stems, free from 

 branch-knots and "full-wooded " in the bole — that is to say, 

 with the diameter of the top-end as large as is practicable in 

 proportion to that of the butt-end. To attain this object as 

 fully as may be possible, and to produce the best monetary 

 returns from the capital represented by the soil and the 

 growing stock of timber, it is essential that the trees selected 

 for cultivation be suitable for the given soil and situation ^ 



