EXTRACTS.—ARBOR! C U LT U RE. 
1%9 
beginning of summer would be a better practice for the good of the trees. The 
reason is, because wounds made in winter do not begin to heal till after the sum¬ 
mer growth takes place. It should be a rule with the pruner never to make a 
wound that cannot be healed in the course of six months; but he can only attend 
to this by a timely application of the knife or chisel. A handsaw should never 
be used in pruning forest trees; because, if the irregular branch be so large as to 
require this tool, it had better remain where it is: and because though it may 
injure the columnar form of the bole externally and the regularity of the grain 
internally, the place where it joins the main body will always be found sound, 
which it would not be, if cut off. Very tall handsome boles may be formed by 
the assistance of long ladders, handsaws, and jack-planes ; but though these large 
and carefully polished scars, will be in a few years covered with healthy wood and 
bark, the marks of the tools will always remain a defect in the timber when it 
comes to the saw-pit. These circumstances show decidedly the necessity of early 
pruning, as well to secure quality as desirable forms of timber. To take care 
that every tree has a principal leader, is a material object of early culture, and 
to maintain its superiority in after growth, a chief point to be attended to. All 
laterals that show a rivalry, so as to divide or deform the axis, should be displa¬ 
ced. Very small branches, or spray, need not be taken from the stem; whether 
they live or die they cannot deteriorate the timber. Forest tree pruning should 
be done gradually, and continued till the business becomes inconvenient, or too 
expensive; and. if judiciously done during the first ten or fifteen years, suffi¬ 
ciently fine forms will have been given, and proper length of bole secured. The 
larger the head of a tree, the larger must the trunk be also, the diameter of the 
latter is increased by the number of branches which are or have been produced 
by the former. In proportion as the roots are increased and extended, in like 
proportion are the head and stem. Severe mutilation of the head paralyses the 
energies of the roots, and vice versa. Reducing the number of branches, to give 
magnitude to the stem is ridiculous. Regulating the growth of the branches, by 
stopping or cutting out such as are over-luxuriant, gives supremacy and direction 
to the leader, but no addition to the stem, or any other part. It is wrong that 
any advantage derivable from wood-lands should depend on or be left to chance. 
Oak of the straitest or cleanest grain is required for planking, beams, posts, &c. 
but besides this description, in the dock-yards, cross-grained huts, and knee tim¬ 
bers are in request, and consequently valuable. The former quality is obtained 
in the shortest time, by rather close planting, early and careful pruning, and 
timely thinning if necessary; the latter, by open planting, and partial pruning, 
i. e. not by aiming at a tall smooth bole, but by leaving the branches in sets of 
three or four (as it may happen) diverging from one place, and clearing the 
trunk of all intermediate branches and spray between these sets. But in all or¬ 
dinary cases, if a sufficient length of bole be gained, the branched head may be 
depended on to furnish knee timbers. Pine and Fir timber, for the use of build¬ 
ers and mast makers, cannot be too free from knots, and it is impossible to have 
it so, unless planted and trained up as closely as possible. Fine-grained deal 
cannot be produced, unless the trees are planted, or chance to stand, as those in 
Norway, from which battens and ladder poles are cut for exportation, so closely 
together as to prevent all extension of branches. All the pine and fir tribe in¬ 
tended for profit, should be planted to grow up, and be all cut down together, 
like a crop of coni. They do not admit of being partially drawn. A single fir 
