256 
PRUNING AND THINNING. 
[Part IV. 
any man well up in botany, would give the first 
semi-diameter of this name from the Latin, and 
the last Grceco fonte. 
I think it possible that oaks, which habitually 
make two shoots in the year, may make two 
(annual?) rings in the year: and this may be 
possible with many trees in the tropics. That 
trees of gigantic stature are not more frequently 
found in unappropriated forests is generally 
to be attributed to their want of room; that 
is, to their growing so close as to injure or 
kill one another. They cannot attain to first- 
rate growth without ages of contention and 
killing all their neighbours. In doing so, the 
growth of the survivors is not only delayed for 
centuries, but in general permanently marred. 
The axe should gradually and successively re¬ 
lieve them from their neighbours. 
Of course, all side-growth is, from the posi¬ 
tion of its weight, more liable to break than 
upright or vertical growth. When a tree takes 
two leaders, from want of light and from want 
of room on the inside, the leaders grow from one 
another to the outside; and from their weight 
inclining to the outside, without anything to 
balance it on the inside, they are liable to split 
from one another. As each leader enlarges 
