125 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, November 29, 1859. 
to give most foliage near the base of the shoot, in order that the 
shoot may be thickest there. These laterals will add to the 
strength of the stem and keep up a vigorous root action, and are 
only to be gradually removed, leaving only the main leaves at the 
joints, when in autumn it is more important to harden and 
ripen the wood than to keep up languid growth. Supposing 
the l’od to be stopped at the top of the house, we would begin 
removing the laterals at the top in September, and finish at tlie 
base by the beginning of October. As soon as the fruit is cut, 
remove the old stem and depend entirely on the young shoot. 
Next spring you will have to determine whether you will con¬ 
tinue such a mode of growing on young wood every year, or make 
the shoot the basis of reverting to the spur pruning. In the 
former case you will treat the new shoot and its crop as advised 
above, giving the room for growth to a sucoessional new one. In 
the latter case you ,will have not only to break your shoot 
regularly, but also to select the buds that are placed at regular 
distances, in order to form future spurs; and these, whether they J 
have fruit or not, will have to be treated as respects laterals, &c., 
as stated under the spur system. We have frequently tried both 
methods, and, on the whole, there is most trouble with the rod ; 
system; and as respects fruit it has its disadvantages and ad¬ 
vantages. In general, as a whole, the bunches are finer, and look 
best at the earliest part of the year ; but we are inclined to think 1 
that the bunches do not finish off so well as under the spur I 
system. First-rate Grapes are, however, obtained equally under 
both systems. For greenhouses the spur mode is by far the most ! 
convenient. There is, however, no difficulty in breaking re¬ 
gularly a young shoot twenty feet or more long, and taking a crop 
regularly all its length, if the roots are in good order and the 
wood is firm, showing little or no pith in the centre. 
;hd. Succession-rod system. — Our correspondent will now 
judge whether his practice has been such, and the strength of his 
wood is such, that ho can take his new shoot all the width of the 
house and entirely destroy his old stem. If at all doubtful, it 
would be best to err on the safe side, and leave his new shoot 
only half the width of the house, or even less than that. In that 
case the old stem should be cleared of spurs, only a little farther 
than the point of the young shoot left. The top of the old stem 
should be left merely as advised above for its fruit, and the upper 
bud of the young shoot encouraged to grow to supply the place 
of the old stem to be removed, whilst the lower part of that 
young shoot with its spurs must be managed according as you 
wish to revert again to the spurring system, which will be again 
in full operation the following year, or whether you would choose 
the succession-rod system. We should prefer spurring.] 
^REMOVING NEWLY-BUDDED ROSES. 
Is it better to move Rose-stocks the first autumn after they 
have been budded on, or should they be allowed to stay in the 
nursery until after the bud has made a shoot ?—A Lady. 
[It is the very worst practice to remove worked Roses in the 
British gardens before the buds inserted the previous summer 
have made shoots. It is a common practice in some foreign 
nurseries to satisfy the craving propensities of the natives for new 
things; and we might do it now and then from necessity— 
either on account of some alterations in the garden or nursery or 
a change of residence, but to make it a practice would not be to 
our advantage.] 
THE MANAGEMENT OF PLANTATIONS AND 
WOODS. 
There are few subjects which are more highly deserving of 
consideration, or of greater interest to the community at large, 
than those which relate to the planting and rearing of trees and 
their conversion into the various uses in our arts and manu¬ 
factures. 
The observant traveller in passing through a breadth of this 
country must have observed the great neglect of trees by their 
proprietors, while in France he may travel for hundreds of miles 
without seeing a single fine tree. The forest of Fontainbleau 
contains many gigantic Oaks, and presents a rich scene of wood¬ 
land beauty; but it is a chaos of mismanagement as to the 
younger trees. At St. Cloud there are a few fine old Chestnut 
trees, which seem to have been promiscuously thrown from 
Nature’s lap. I never was more forcibly struck with this defi¬ 
ciency of trees than in going from Boulogne-sur-Mer to Paris. 
The whole distance is so perfectly unlike our English scenery, 
where the whole landscape is varied with our beautiful Elms, 
Oaks, and Beeches ; and the horizontal line of tops is occasionally 
broken by a group, or a single specimen of the Lombardy Poplar. 
But while dilating upon the beautiful tout ensemble which our 
country presents to the eyes of admiring travellers, we must step 
aside from the whole to examine its details; and in them I fear 
to find much of ignorant practice and extraordinary empiricism. 
Whilst writing on the subject, may I be permitted to hint 
that the science of arboriculture would by the establishment of 
an arboricultural society be much advanced ? See how much the 
agricultural and horticultural societies have done for their re¬ 
spective sciences, and mark the good which results from bringing 
various experiences together. 
Perhaps there are few actions more agreeable to men of mind 
than that of planting trees. The wisest and best of men have 
always delighted in doing so. It is not to be wondered at, then, 
that the wealthy traders of our cities and manufacturing towns— 
our millionaires—purchase vast estates, and plant them with all 
kinds of trees, without regard to any final arrangement or what 
kinds of trees are best suited for the soil. Having done this, 
the plantation goes on for some twenty-five or thirty years with¬ 
out a thought or a touch. The trees become crowded and 
attenuated, and it is then determined to thin them. In all pro¬ 
bability a great number of Larches are planted as nurses ; but 
from their rapid growth they have mastered and destroyed all 
the other trees. The plantation is thinned, and a strong gale 
follows in a short time ; the long, heavy-topped trees are wind- 
waved and bent in all directions, and their future progress is 
checked for ever. This is, I regret to say, but too faithful a 
picture of plantation management as exemplified by the major 
part of English proprietors, who seem to think it honourable to 
be well acquainted with the “ Herd Book,” who thin out their 
Turnips thoroughly, but who leave their trees to pine and waste 
neglected. “’Tis strange! ’tis true !” 
It is most difficult to account for the phenomenon of a man 
who recognises in one department the principles of vegetable 
physiology, but throw's all his knowledge to the winds in the 
culture of other plants which can only succeed by adopting the 
same principles. 
Turnips will not grow fine if clustered ; neither will trees unless 
they have a free circulation of air—a condition only secured by 
watchfulness and timely thinning. 
There is another great and most prevalent error. Persons 
“who cut wood that they may have wood,” frequently pro¬ 
crastinate the operation till too late in the season, when the roots 
have been slowly storing up sap for the buds since the fall of the 
leaf, and they expect their wood to come up thick and strong. 
But how can such be hoped for? The stools have already 
laboured hard for the supply, and the small residue which they 
can afford is a poor and weak measure of supply, and will 
produce but a puny race of shoots, of which the strongest will 
annihilate the weakest. Great advantage would result in coppice 
woods from thinning out the shoots, cutting away the weaker, 
and ieaving the strong unencumbered by their w'eaker and 
doomed brethren. 
There are many candidates for the situation of foresters who 
do not understand anything of the effect of fine trees in groups or 
masses, and do not appreciate the intricate and ever-varying 
forms which woods adopt in their outlines, but thin all their 
plantations by line and rule—a very good plan in the interior, 
but a most unpicturesque one on the outside. To unite beauty 
with utility in this kind of work is seldom thought of; and the 
timber-merchant would look with scorn upon the man who sees 
beauty in trees depicted otherwise than in square feet. 
The trees oh the exterior of a w'ood should have much less 
pruning than those inside it. They shoidd not have their 
branches pruned above the browsing line; whilst those inside 
may be pruned as highly as the purpose for which they are grown 
j requires. 
There are two applications of the art of pruning to forest trees. 
: The one is mere lopping off or sawing decayed Mmbs from a 
I healthy tree, and may be railed amputation ; and the other is the 
} exercise of a watchful care over the young shoots, pinching out 
vigorous growths where they tend to make the tree unfit for its 
object, and thus assisting to strengthen those growths which tend 
to accomplish what is required. If this preventive-pruning were 
more practised there would be much less of cutting and maiming 
in after years. Surely it is better to use preventives than to 
apply remedies. 
