698 
ON PRUNING FOREST TREES. 
wanting on the effects of the various modes of pruning forest trees, 
and it is a subject which would become the Horticultural Society to 
take up; their garden might be made a great experiment ground on 
this very important point without at all diminishing its beauty, in¬ 
stead of its being merely a pretty walking garden, with good gravel 
and turf. If you look back into some of the old writings on gar¬ 
dening, you will find many curious observations on the management 
of garden hedges, Espaliers, and what they called Topiary works. 
For instance, in the “ Dictionarium Rusticum, Urbanicum et Botan- 
icum 1726,” you will find an account of the method of making gar¬ 
den hedges of the cypress of the levant, of training the spruce fir and 
the holly for the same purpose, of causing roses to blossom late in 
the year, and many other matters which were better understood 
when gardening was of a more formal cut than they now are, not 
that I recommend the return to Topiary work, but every body at 
some time or other may wish to shelter his garden, or shut out an 
obnoxious object. With respect to the cypress there is reason to 
believe that its timber, though of slow growth, is of great value, and 
as a garden hedge plant it appears to me quite unrivalled both in 
beauty and hardiness. 
A. B. 
ARTICLE XIV. 
ON PRUNING FOREST TREES. 
BY MR. HOWDEN. 
Although I have seen much of, and written on Forest tree pru- 
• ning, I think not half enough has yet been said on the subject. 
Your correspondent quotes the writing of a third person, who says 
“ it is a mistaken idea, that by pruning you accelerate the growth of 
the tree, for more than twenty years I have witnessed its bad effects, 
the tree that is left to nature, invariably increases faster than one 
subjected to lopping and pruning. I do protest “ says he” against 
pruning for the purpose of improving the growth of timber: if you 
deprive the tree of its leaves or mouths , the roots are unable to ob¬ 
tain that which enables them to perform their functions.’ ’ Now I 
on the other hand, after forty years’ experience, do protest against 
the above doctrine ; if good timber is to be had, the tree should be 
pruned every year, or every two years at farthest, and this may be 
done with the knife, bill, or chisel, at one-tenth of the expense of the 
