On Pruning Forest Trees. 
391 
lash the summits, producing a scene of desolation, of which the mas¬ 
ter pen of Sir Walter Scott has produced the following description:— 
In modern times we rarely see those melancholy wrecks of woods 
which have once been promising, but wdiere the nurses have been 
allowed to remain, until they have choked and sw'allowed the more 
\'nlLiable crop, which they had been intended to shelter; and where 
the former existence of Oaks, Elms, and Ashes, is only proved by a 
few stragling bushes, which being near the verge of the plantation, 
have, by straggling, and contracting their boughs, contrived to get as 
much of the atmosphere as is sufficient to keep them alive, whilst the 
interior of the wood presents only a dull and hopeless succession of 
spindle-shanked Scotch Firs, which, like a horde of savages, after 
having invaded and ruined a civilized and wealthy province, are 
finally employed in destroying each other. Timely thinning, com¬ 
menced in the fifth season after planting, and repeated from time to 
time as occasion requires, effectually prevents this loss of hopes, 
plants, and labour.’’ 
It is with great reason that your correspondent says, that ‘‘ too 
great a partiality for trees often occasions an error, which defeats the 
object of the planter and improver,” also, that ‘‘The progressive 
works of thinning and pruning, demand a skilful, and if possible, a 
master’s hand,” He appears however, to have somewhat confounded 
the operations pruning and thinning: the latter is a process, by 
which the trees left standing are essentially benefitted, but the former 
is one of very doubtful utility at the best. It affects the individual tree 
upon which it is performed; for by it, the leaves, the buds, spray, and 
branches,—all of them being (or containing organs) engaged in the 
performance of vital functions,—are amputated and severed from the 
trunk, w'hich thus is deprived, to a greater or less extent, of its means 
of nutriment, and increase in bulk. 
“All trees,” observes An Arborist, “are patient of the knife.” Pa- 
tient they are, it is true; that is to say, trees being unresisting beings, 
not endowed with any loco-motive or combative faculty, are incapable 
of giving instant proof of shrinking from the knife, or of resenting its 
inflictions; but it is a gross mistake to imagine, that the vital principle 
of the plant remains wholly passive or insensible, under such severe 
treatment. I conceive. Gentlemen, that I cannot—while on the sub¬ 
ject of pruning,—do your readers a greater service, than by quoting 
a few pages from the letters of one or more of the correspondents of 
I Mr. Withers of Holt, published in that gentleman’s address to Sir 
Walter Scott. 
Pruning,** observes one, “if done at all, should be done at an 
1 early period, and no larger boughs should be taken off, than the 
