214 
PRUNING AND THINNING. 
[Part IV« 
Plantations are 
and should be 
planted too thick 
to grow, and 
should be 
thinned every 
year. 
distance than three inches from the centre, the 
rest of the entire mass of timber will be without 
a vestige of a knot or even of a cross-grain. If 
the plants are left too close, weak poles will be 
grown ; if they are left too wide apart, too many 
and too large side-boughs will be developed. 
Supposing perfect shelter and perfect room 
together, almost all trees will make a good 
fight on almost all soils: but it may be laid 
down as a general rule that, where shelter is 
given, room is not; that plantations are always 
planted too thick to grow, and are never 
thinned; that in plantations the nurse always 
over-lies the child. It is not meant here to 
object to planting plantations too thick to grow: 
they should be planted too thick to grow, and 
then thinned, taking the worst plant worst 
placed, and leaving the best plant best placed; 
regard being had to what is likely to suit the 
soil best, and what is intended to be grown 
permanently. In this way, not only is the 
ground cropped , not only is profit made by the 
thinning, and not only are unduly large side- 
boughs discouraged, but an immense choice for 
the permanent plants is gained, and the soil, 
instead of being exhausted by such cropping, 
is enriched by it, as has been argued. 
