108 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



The production of liigii-class timber is greatly facilitated by 

 a considerable degree of closeness in plantations, especially at 

 an early age. It is quite impossible to lay down any hard and 

 fast rules on this subject, because everything depends on the 

 species of tree and the character of the situation. "What one 

 should aim at in planting out the trees is that they should be 

 placed so close together that their lateral branches will begin to 

 touch and overlap in about seven or eight years. Where we are 

 dealing with a quick-growing tree, such as the Larch or Scotch 

 Pine, this state of things will be sooner attained (assuming that 

 an equal number of trees have been planted on an acre) than in 

 the case of such trees as the Spruce or Silver Fir. Similarly as 

 regards the situation. If this is of superior quality — if the soil 

 is deep, the elevation moderate, and the climate favourable — 

 then, other things being equal, the trees grow more quickly, and 

 begin to close in on each other sooner, than under opposite 

 conditions. We thus arrive at the general rule as regards the 

 number of trees that should be planted out on a given area: 

 The more rapid-growing the trees are in youth, or the better the 

 quality of the locality, so much the wider may the distances be 

 that intervene between the young plants. 



The advantages attending a complete shading of the ground 

 and the lower part of the boles at a comparatively early age are 

 many. It secures that the lower branches shall be killed while 

 still small, and these, decaying and separating themselves from 

 the stem at an early age, leave a clean bole and timber as free 

 from knots as it is possible to have it. It is not enough that 

 the branches should be killed merely, for if they remain adhering 

 to the tree for a considerable number of years after they are 

 dead they prejudicially affect the quality of the timber more than 

 if they remained alive. The knots formed by living branches 

 are in complete union with the wood of the stem, so that, when 

 the tree is cut up into planks, or any other form of manu- 

 factured timber, they do indeed diminish the strength, but at all 

 events they cannot easily be knocked out. On the other hand, 

 when the base of a dead branch is enveloped by the wood of the 

 stem, a loose knot is produced, which very often falls out omng 

 to shrinkage, so tliat a hole is left in the beam or plank. It 

 cannot be too strongly insisted upon that dead branches behave 

 to the tree just as foreign bodies do. The effect of a dead branch 



