ON PRUNING FOREST TREES. 
641 
kie’s system of foreshortening may do very well for laurels, hollies, 
and other ornamental trees; but for timber, it is worse than useless. 
Lord Bathurst may be very fond of his great lime trees ; if I were 
him, I would cut them down and plant something better. As proofs 
that the pruning of trees does them no injury, but good, I shall give 
you the following instances :—A larch tree not far from my win¬ 
dow, which I had planted no less than twice before, was mangled by 
a fat bullock as he was going to the butcher, it was then about seven 
feet high, in 1816, the bullock broke or bruised every branch, and at 
last with his horns tossed it clear up into the air; T planted it again, 
and cut off all the bruised branches, when it looked little better than 
a coachman’s whip-stick : I have since attended to pruning it every 
year, and it is now the largest larch in a range of plantations of ma¬ 
ny hundreds of acres of the same age, being forty-five feet high, and 
nearly four feet round at the base, tapering regularly to the top, the 
butt or bole is twenty-five feet of clear wood, and I never mean to 
touch it again. 
Some people are very fond of the picturesque, and would like to 
see trees feathered to the ground, their ne plus ultra would be a 
tree the shape and size of an Egyptian pyramid. I am also fond of 
the picturesque, I should like my trees to look like pyramids, but I 
would have them fixed on pompey’s pillars, by this means the manu¬ 
facturer would give me more for a pompey’s pillar, than for all the 
pyramids put together. The next instance I shall give, is of an Elm, 
which grows opposite to the larch, it is the old English or broad¬ 
leaved, which you know is a very spreading tree,—but the timber is 
much superior to the narrow-leaved Elm,—it had all the appearance 
of an old tree, or an old gooseberry-bush at seven years old; it had 
broke into four limbs at nearly right angles, about four feet high; I 
could scarcely determine which limb to call the leader, however, I 
cut off three of them, and attended to pruning it every year after¬ 
wards, it has now a clear straight bole of nearly twenty feet, and 
three feet in circumference. 
John Howden. 
