C40 ON PRUNING FOREST TREES. 
Irame, and allow them as much as ninety degrees of heat ; when the 
shoots grow, they must be supported by tying them to sticks, or a 
temporary trellis : bv which treatment they will advance upwards of 
ten feet high, and flower beautifully. When the stalks have died 
down, remove the pots from the bark bed to a dry part of the house, 
when they will be entirely free from any droppings of water, as they 
must have no moisture during the time they remain in a dormant 
state. Thev are readily propogated by dividing tlie roots, or by 
seeds which generally ripen very freely. 
RusTicus. 
ARBORICULTURE. 
ARTICLE XII.— ON PRUNING FOREST TREES. 
BY MR. JOHN HOWDEN. 
I OBSERVE, you have introduced some more observations on Pruning 
Forest Trees, &c. into j^our Register. One article p. 390, from the 
gren of G. I. T., and the other p. 406, by Mr. Blakie, of Holkliam. 
What a pity, that these gentlemen so desirous of doing good, should 
be the means of misleading ; they entertain such extraordinary ideas 
on vegetable physiology. The}' suppose the leaves of a tree to be its 
mouths, &c. whereby it inhales nourishment. Now I consider them 
quite the reverse, and I should not be very far wrong, if I said they 
were merely the excrements of the timber, or why does the tree dis- 
chai'ge them annually, or biennia^y. The leaves of a tree ajDpears 
to me no more mouths than the hair on my head, or the wool on a 
sheep's back ; they carry off insensible perspiration, and superabun- 
dant sap. Pray, do you think the hole or trunk of the weeping ash, 
lately planted at C-hatsworth, has swelled in proportion to its im- 
mense quantity of mouths ? I know you will answer in the negative, 
that tree would have been ten times its present size, with a tenth of 
its mouths. I am as averse to sawing off large boughs from an old 
tree as any of your coi'respondents, I would have them cut off before 
they become large. The only way to improve an old mis-shapen 
tree, is to send it to the sawyers, and plant a handsome one in its 
place, and afterwards attend to pruning it properly, until it is brought 
into the form or shape intended, then touch it no more till you fell 
it for the timber -merchant. It is almost impossible to overprune any 
tree, providing you do not overprune it in any one year. Mr. Bla- 
