370 
FOREST TREES. 
assert that the stem is stretched or protruded, so that the boughs, 
first situated near the ground are, by the growth and lengthening of 
the stem, lifted up farther from the earth ? this they cannot say : 
yet they will have great reluctance in admitting the existence of this 
natural shedding of sprays, for no person who well understands it 
will ever prune under the idea of improving the shape or increasing 
the quantity of timber. 
It has been stated that it is natural to all trees to have a certain 
portion of the stem free from branches. The length of the stem 
clear from branches depends on the situation of the tree. In pro¬ 
portion as the situation is exposed the stem is shorter; but, if it were 
possible to have a tree grow up to maturity, without ever having its 
lower houghs either cut off, or destroyed by other trees or bushes, 
that is, if the ground round about the tree were entirely without any 
other vegetable whatever, and the situation were open and at the 
same time the tree protected from any thing that could injure its 
lower boughs, a tree so situated would, when at maturity, have a 
portion of its stem free from boughs. 
The manner in which the boughs are shed, is much more perfect 
in some trees than in others. The Oak effects it in the most com¬ 
plete manner. Every one who has at all turned his attention to the 
growth of the oak, must have observed a number of dead sprays ly¬ 
ing under the trees; but the authors of all the works I have read, 
relating to the management of trees, have omitted to notice these 
naturally shed sprays. 
If the end of one of these sprays be examined, it will be found to 
resemble the end of the footstalk of a leaf, where it has naturally se¬ 
parated from the spray; it also has an appearance something like the 
end of a buck’s horn, where it has separated from the head of the 
buck. The shape and appearance of the part that has separated 
from the tree will convince any one that it is a natural division. 
The end of the spray is a little convex, and entirely without that 
jaggedness attending the fracture of living sprays. Now it is after 
this natural pruning only, that a union takes place between the old 
and new wood; although many primers buoy up and encourage 
themselves with the idea, that the old and new wood unites, where 
their clumsy operations have been performed : for clumsy indeed, 
are the operations of the pruner in comparison with those of nature. 
I may be accused of a want of courtesy; but there is little due to 
those, w r ho have the assurance to take upon themselves the correction 
and improvement of a thing, the nature of which they are so ignorant 
of, as to he unacquainted with the power of trees to discontinue such 
