118 
PRUNING FOREST TREES. 
crowded, yet it will bear being clipped by shears, the same as a yew, 
proofs of which may be seen in the Duke of Devonshires plantations 
at Buxton, and from what I have observed there, as well as in several 
other places, I am satisfied the fir will grow in a swampy situation 
full as well as in a dry one, 
Now for a few words upon the pruning of Forest Trees, as oak, 
ash, elm, and Spanish chesnut, and suppose them to be from six or 
eight, to 16 or 18 feet high. My rule is first, to trace the leader from 
the ground to the uppermost twig, I then observe one or two, seldom 
more, branches which interfere with the growth of the leader, and 
like certain demagogues would become leaders themselves ; these I 
shorten, by cutting them beyond, or on the outside of a shoot which 
is sufficiently vigorous, to preserve alive the branch upon which it 
grows, but not so as ever again to permit it to be a leader. Some¬ 
times one, very commonly two, such amputations suffice to set the 
leader almost at liberty, and out of danger from any future encroach¬ 
ments upon his prerogative. 
Mr. Howden is wrong in condemning Mr. Blakie s foreshortening, 
and for this reason, viz. that in a young tree where there may be 
perhaps three or more branches, all of them aspiring to be leaders, 
you have only the following alternatives: First, to let them all alone, 
in which case you will have a great bush, instead of a timber tree ; 
Second, foreshorten according to Blakie, leaving upon it a living 
shoot; or Fourth, cut off close to the trunk; and that this is the 
worst way of all, I have been long ago certain, and will now endea¬ 
vour to prove. I think it will in the first place be admitted that in a 
plantation of twenty or thirty years growth, the best and finest trees 
will be generally found near the outsides, where their branches have 
had more room to spread, and their tops have not, during strong winds, 
been beaten all round by the tops of other trees. If I am right in 
this conjecture, it would appear that a certain quantity of side shoots 
or small branches are requisite to secure the quick and proportion- 
able growth of the stem. Now as to the effects of close pruning, 
suppose a branch of three or four inches diameter to be cut off close 
to the stem, it will be many years before the wound is covered by the 
bark, during which time the pores of the remaining part of the 
branch act as conductors, to cany the wet down into the very heart 
of the tree below the wound, by means of which decay is soon com¬ 
menced, and however slow it may be in its progress, it will sooner or 
later, prove destructive to the timber: and as the lips of the bark 
continue to increase, and approach towards the centre, so is there 
more and more, until they nearly touch, a kind of vial formed for 
