18 
PRUNING FOREST TREES. 
ARBORICULTURE. 
ARTICLE X. 
ON PRUNING FOREST TREES— by a Mountaineer. 
It requires the attentive watchfulness of the Forester to discover 
where, or in what projDortion, the air is to he introduced into an ex¬ 
posed plantation upon the windward side. If the screen is too speedily 
opened, the trees suddenly exposed to cold and stormy winds be¬ 
come disordered in the sap-vessels, hide-hound, and mossed, and 
finally dwindle into unsightly shrubs, or perhaps die entirely. If 
the air he not admitted at all, or in due quantities, they are equally 
sure to wither and decay for want of breath. This dilemma arises 
from not observing the address (so to call it) with which trees adapt 
themselves to an exposed or more sheltered situation. If the shelter 
be allowed to become too dense, the tree, like a valetudinarian in an 
over heated room, becomes injured by the very means adopted for 
its prevention. On the other hand if the physician wished to allow 
such a patient a fresher atmosphere, he certainly would give him 
time to put on warmer clothing. To pay the same respect to trees 
in the interior of our plantations, the outside trees must be thinned 
and pruned gradually. Some managers of woods contrive both er¬ 
rors, by neglecting the necessary thinning and pruning for years, and 
finally setting about it with a hasty and unsparing hand. Time and 
experience alone can teach the Forester to observe a medium course 
in this important operation; but as to thinning in general, it may be 
received as a maxim “ that he who spares the axe hates the wood.” 
When plantations thrive in a wild desert or mountain, a hardy 
and moral population living by the axe and mattock, pursuing their 
usual occupation in a mode equally favourable to health and morality 
would arise. The woods requiring in succession planting, pruning, 
thinning, felling, and barking, would furnish to such labourers a con¬ 
stant succession of employment. They would be naturally attached 
to the soil on which they dwelt, and the proprietor who afforded them 
the means of life, would be very undeserving if he had not his share 
of that attachment. 
In a word, the melancholy maxim of the poet would be confuted, 
and the race of “bold peasantry” whom want and devastation had 
driven from these vast wilds, would be restored to their native coun¬ 
try. This circumstance alone deserves the most profound attention 
