380 On Pruning FureU Trees. 
upon the theories they ailvance, or the facts they adduce. It would ill 
become me, Sir.?, who profess to be vour sincere friend, to introduce 
disputes into your pages; sooner than do so, I would be content to 
remain merely a quiescent reader. When,, however, I feel thorough- 
ly convinced of the truth of a position, I should be false to my own 
principles, and unjust to those readers, whose aim it is to found their 
opinions upon physiological observations, were I to withdraw from 
the field at once, and thus abandon the support of those principles 
which I believe to be supported by the evidence of a thousand facts. 
Many of the remarks of an "An Arborist," are quite judicious; 
his experience during thirty years, has enabled him to arrive at very 
just conclusions. Thus he has observed, that "plantations which 
have been well attended to, in respect to enclosing, draining, and 
properly planting, have thriven well for the first twelve or fifteen 
years," and then have, through neglect, deteriorated; the Scotch Fir, 
and Larch, "which had been judiciously planted for shelter," over- 
whelming and ruining the Oak, Ash, Elm, &c., which were originally 
intended to constitute the permanent plantation. 
It ought to be generally known, that it was a custom formerly, and 
probably remains so to the present day, to plant various trees as nur- 
ses of young forest plantations : these nurses consisted chiefly of the 
Scotch Pine, the Larch, and the Mountain Ash ; they were inter- 
spersed among the more valuable timber ti'ees, in order to (as it was 
supposed they certainly would) protect and nurse up such as are 
more tender, but ultimately, more valuable. Mr. Pontey, author of 
the "Profitable Planter," is in favour of planting three temporary 
trees, at the least, as nurses to one of the principal trees ; and Mr. 
Sang, as appears in his "Planter's Calendar," "adopts the propor- 
tion of three nurses to one principal, and employs chiefly the resinous 
tribe, and looks to them for reimbursement, till the hard timber has 
attained to a foot in diameter, under which size hard timber is seldom 
of much value. His principals are planted from six to ten feet apart, 
according to the soil and situation." See also, "Loudon's Encyclo- 
paedia of Gardening," page 945. 
A great eiTor appears to have existed in thus arranging the nurses, 
which surely ought to have been planted as screens, in rows, to the 
north or north-east boundaries of the permanent plantation : so situa- 
ted, they would have screened the young adA^ancing trees, instead of 
intercepting the atmospheric influence and light, which are the life 
and soul of the vegetating plant. When by indolence or neglect, the 
nurses are suffered to remain too long, their branches out-top and 
overshadow the slow growers ; and while they thus impoverish those 
they were intended to protect, their over-hanging branrhe? whip and 
