PRUNING FOREST TREES. 
17 
man's arms seriously affects for a certain 
pei-iod the course of his health, which after a 
time, however, is re-established. If a tree 
had the power, when mutilated, to break forth 
to a certain extent, so as to make up for the 
loss it had sustained by such a mutilation, the 
difficulty of pruning would be at once at an 
end ; but a tree has no such power, and we 
again recur to the fact, that without the top- 
agents, or spray, the structure is a helpless one. 
The plan to prune, then, and it is one 
which I have invariably pursued, is to do little 
at a time, leaving the tree in possession of as 
many of its top branches as you can consis- 
tently with the required length of bole ; but 
the pruner is not to go regularly upwards with 
his operations, for that would be the vulgar 
and highly -injurious practice of dressing, but 
he is to take out first the larger branches, 
leaving the smaller ones to swell out the trunk, 
which in their turn will be removed when that 
object is fulfilled. Experienced men know at 
a glance the proportion a stem should bear to 
a tree of a given height; and in general it 
may be stated, for example, that a well pro- 
portioned larch, 18 feet or 20 feet high, should 
have a trunk, at one foot from the ground, of 
14 inches in circumference ; an elm 25 feet 
high, should be at least 18 inches at a foot 
from the ground; an oak 15 feet high should 
have a stem of 14 inches; a lime 20 feet high, 
12 inches ; a horse-chestnut 25 feet high, 24 
inches ; and a Lombardy poplar 35 feet high, 
should be also 24 inches. Soil and situation, 
and other circumstances, will of course alter 
the relative proportions, as well as the height 
and thickness of a tree ; but in the generality 
of cases the above dimensions may be con- 
sidered as approaching to the proper standard. 
Though it is stated that little should be done 1 
to a tree at a time, it is not meant that the 
system of pruning should be kept up, as is too 
frequently done, till nearly the end of its life; 
for the sooner the tree can he formed and left 
to itself, the more satisfactory mill be its in- 
crease. Indeed, there should be no occasion 
to touch a timber tree for twenty years before 
it is cut down. 
As to the manner in which the operation of 
pruning should be performed, most persons 
are agreed. The branch should be taken 
clean out, so that the cut may be level with 
the trunk. The practice of foreshortening 
the branches, or cutting them off at about 
a foot or a foot and a half from the trunk, 
only causes the dormant buds or spray wdiich 
may be upon the part left to break out, and 
thus increase the size of that part which has 
ultimately to be removed. The lime, elm, 
oak, alder, willow, poplar, and several others, 
almost invariably throw out small spray in 
this manner; whilst the same parts left on the 
birch, beech, and larch not (infrequently die, 
and thus cause a complete barrier to the 
healing up of the trunk, besides causing an 
inlet for rain and in 
The proper time for pruning would appear 
to be the autumn, after a tree has shed its 
leaves, and before the roots commence to 
absorb the sustenance destined for the .support 
of the whole frame, because that portion of sap 
intended for the branches lopped off will be 
distributed over the parts remaining, provided 
the loss of branches is not such as to cause a 
general disarrangement throughout the s\ 
Luckily for England, and its untaught 
pruners, the tree which best suffers every 
barbarity that can be inflicted upon it, is the 
elm (Ulmus Campestris), found plentiful in 
every county, and a general favourite in our 
hedgerows. When large branches are cut off 
from the stem, it usually furnishes itself with 
small twigs instead, which are of the highest 
importance in thickening the bole. Around 
London, where the tree is even stripped from 
the bottom to the topmost twig, it readily breaks 
forth in a bottle -brush fashion, clothing itself 
with spray sufficient at least to keep the trunk 
alive. The ash, again, is a difficult tree to 
manage, its branches being few and of a large 
size. If a false step is taken, it has not the 
power of recovering itself speedily ; hence the 
necessity of well-judged treatment applied to 
this individual. The birch is in some respects a 
shy tree, impatient of the knife; and if there 
should not be a proper communication kept 
up between the roots and the leaves, this 
great adornment to the crag will cease to dis- 
play its beauty. This must arise, I think, 
from a peculiarity in the bark, which is much 
harder and more durable than the wood, and 
which no doubt requires the full agency of the 
leaves to enable it to expand. The oak pre- 
sents nothing which the usual routine of care- 
ful pruning may not overcome. Removing 
the larger branches and leaving the smaller 
ones for a year or two to perfect the stem, 
was the plan which Marsham pursued; and 
his plantations at Stratton Strawless now dis- 
play more perfect models than are to be found 
perhaps in any other place of similar extent in 
England. 
Thinning is so intimately connected with 
pruning, that it may be alluded to under the 
same head. Both processes have for their 
object the admitting of fight and air. Thin- 
ning will not fashion a trunk, but it will 
harden it, and improve the fibre of such trees 
as remain; audit would be quite useless to in- 
sist upon the performance of the one operation 
without the other. In the forest of Dean, 
great numbers of oak trees planted in masses, 
about forty years since, have stems sixty feet 
in height ; but as they have never been 
F 
