182 
PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
for if they stand in walks or avenues they ought to have a greater heed to make a 
shade withall, and improve the prospect; but if in groves or thicketts, or among 
other forrest trees, they ought to be pruned much higher, especially when design’d 
for timber use. And tho’ there are some who don’t approve of pruning Eirr Trees, 
alleadging that the Eirr will prune itself, yet the pluggs and knots so frequently seen 
in deal boards, &c., are the ill effects of leaving them thus to themselves ; whereas, 
if those boughs or dead branches had been lopt off in time, the breach would, in 
two or three years, be quite heal’d up and covered by the succeeding coats and 
circles that surround and enlarge the tree on each year’s growth ; of which plain 
instances are given in trees that have been sown, pruned yearly to a considerable 
height, and, at length, cut down by the same hand, where, in the body, and near the 
hart of the tree, were seen the severall places or marks where the boughs have been 
cut of and grown over again to a considerable thickness, so as not the least sign or 
scar was to be seen where the boughs or branches were to have grown. 
There are frequently among the arms or boughs of the Eirr Trees those called 
master boughs, or proud branches, which seem to vie or contend with the chiefe or 
upright stem of the trees, and sometimes get the better of them, whereby the trees 
become crooked, disagreeable to the eye. This is no way to be prevented but by 
lopping them off in time ; for if suffer’d to grow too long, they not only occasion 
large wounds even to the very head of the trees, but endanger the loss of all, by 
their breaking of at those places where the wounds were given, upon the first great 
winds that shall beat on those sides of the trees. 
Let the Eirr have ever so many years’ growths, either on the main stem or 
branches only, those of the last, or two last years will be found set with the green 
leaves ; for it sheds a set of leaves every year, about the months of August or Sep¬ 
tember, as other forrest trees do the autumn following, which makes the inner part 
of the tree (especially if view’d from below) look very ill. This likewise makes 
the pruning necessary, especially when they so well answer several occasions about 
a house or farm, where they prove very good stakes and binders for hedges ; and 
what is good for no other use will, if kept dry, make excellent faggots for fireing. 
In setting out any number of trees into groves or walks, it seems necessary they 
be all of the same age or height, and taken out of the same nursery; for different 
ages make a disproportion, and being brought from severall nurserys, the soyl may 
prove unkindly to some of them, and thereby, too, make their growth unequal; 
this, in time, will make the weakest decline, and by being over-topt by the rest, 
dye, and make a breach in the whole: wherefore, as soon as any are despair’d off, 
they must be desplac’d, and others brought into their room the very next season, 
and those (as directed) of the same age; for filling up the places of trees of any con¬ 
siderable height with small one’s, is but labour in vain. 
The Firr seems not lyable to the infirmities incident to most other trees, as the 
rot, shake, blast, canker, vermin, or the like. 
It’s found by experience that they thrive and grow very well in our course, 
strong, sower, spouty soyl, and all such grounds as are inclinable to be woody, and 
throw up the strong sharp-pointed rushes ; nor, indeed, can any ground be thought 
too course for them, provided it be moist enough, for we find them growing upon 
the barren inaccessable rocks and mountains, as already hinted, where they have 
scarce, in appearance, anything to nourish them but the waters of the melting 
snows, that continually sapp and drench their roots; and in Ireland here they 
seem to have grown in the wettest, coursest bottoms of the whole kingdom, from 
whence we may inferr that our rich, warm, dry, or sandy soyl, is not at all proper 
for them. 
The Eirr is an aspireing tree, running up constantly in one intire stem, or body ; 
and may, therefore, be judg’d to take up less space of ground in walk or grove 
than most other forrest trees, as the oak, ash, &c., that are naturally inclined to 
extend their arms or boughs to a great distance: where, therefore, the oak, ash, 
&c., are planted in a walk or avenue, at twenty foot distance; the Eirr may stand at 
twelve or fourteen, and so proportionably in groves or thickets, where the Eirr need 
stand but ten foot assunder. This differance in the distance and way of standing 
will make a sensible alteration in the height and bulk, or thickness, of the trees, as 
is observ’d by some now growing in this kingdom; for where trees, in a walk of 
