ovina, Festuca duriuscula, Aira cœspitosa, Aira flexuosa, Cynosurus cristatus, Agrostis stolonifera and vulgaris, Achillea millefolium, Trifolium minus, and white clover. Game are fond of these grasses.

CHAPTER VI.

Of the Culture of Plantations; Soil; Pruning; Thinning; remedies for accidental injuries and Natural Diseases of Forest Trees. Of the Tanning afforded by the Bark of different Species of Trees.

THE judicious culture of plantations is a point of the last importance to secure a full return of profits from the capital expended in their formation, as well as for every other advantage that judicious planting confers; for let the care and skill employed in their formation have been ever so great, if the proper culture be not continued from the period of planting to maturity of growth, disappointment in obtaining the effects of wood, and loss of profits will be the certain results. The numerous instances to be seen almost everywhere of the bad effects resulting from the neglect of judicious pruning and thinning of the trees of plantations, and the great loss caused thereby to the proprietors, evince fully the importance of this branch of the subject, which embraces the following points:

1st. Culture of the soil.

2d. Pruning.

3d. Thinning.

4th. Remedies for accidental injuries, or natural diseases.

First. The culture of a trenched soil of a newly-formed plantation, consists in keeping the surface clean of weeds until the shade of the trees prevents their growth. It is true that these weeds take a portion of nourishment from the soil, but from what was before stated regarding the food supplied to the plants by the soil, it is clear that the growth of herbaceous weeds can injure but little, if in any degree, the growth of forest-trees. When the trees are young and of a small size, however, the mechanical effects of these weeds are extremely hurtful when they are suffered to grow and mingle their shoots with the lower branches of the young trees, by obstructing the free circulation of air, and preventing the genial influence of the solar rays from reaching to their tender shoots, and this is evident to common observation in the decay or death of the branches subjected to contact with them, and in the consequent unhealthy appearance of the leading shoot of the tree.

Hoeing the surface as often as may be required to prevent perennial weeds from forming perfect leaves and new roots, and annual weeds from perfecting seeds, is all that is required. Two seasons of strict adherence to this rule, even in the worst cases, will render the labour or expense of future years comparatively trifling, and the healthy progress of the trees I will reward the care and attention.

On soils planted by the slit, or holing-in mode of planting, it is essentially necessary to prevent the natural herbage of the soil from mingling with the lateral branches of the young tree. An active workman with a steel mattock-hoe will clean round the plants on a large space of ground in a day. Summer is the best season for the work, as the weeds are more effectually destroyed, and the partial stirring of the soil about the roots of such plants as require cleaning benefits their growth.

Should the planting and culture now described have been faithfully

executed, there will be few failures. When these happen, however, the vacancies must be filled up, at the proper season, with stout plants, and the holes be properly prepared for the reception of the roots. It is a good practice for the first two or three years of a trenched plantation to take a crop of potatoes, mangel wurzel, or carrots, according to circumstances. The rule, which must be strictly adhered to in the introduction of these crops, is, that no part of the foliage or tops of the green crop touch or even approximate near to the young trees; a rule of practice which, if broken through, produces equal damage as from a rampant crop of weeds to the plantation.

Second. There are three different kinds or modes of pruning, which, in practice, have been named close pruning (a, fig. 11). Snag pruning (b), and foreshortening (c).

Fig. 11.

By leaving a snag (b) of the branch, it in time forms a blemish in the timber, in consequence of young wood forming round the stump, and embedding it in the tree. Snag pruning is the most rude and injudicious mode that can be practised, being invariably attended with injury to the quality of the timber: it should never be adopted under any circumstances whatever. Close pruning (a) is performed by sawing or cutting off a branch close to its parent stem or primary leading branch (c). This is the only mode to be adopted in training, or rather improving, the stem or bole of a tree, or wherever it is desirable that no reproduction of branches from the point should follow. The most perfect manner of executing the work is to saw the branch off close to the parent stem, and smooth any roughness that may be left on the surface of the wound with a sharp knife, taking care not to reduce the edges of the bark which surround the wound more than is actually necessary to remove the lacerated surface. To prevent the action of air and moisture on the naked wood, a dressing should be applied, composed of ingredients that will adhere to the spot, and resist the action of drought and rain. Three parts of cow-dung and one of sifted lime will be found a very effective substitute for the more compound dressing of Forsyth. The dressing should be laid on one-quarter of an inch in thickness, or more when the wound is large: when rendered smooth and firmly pressed to the part, powdered lime should be thrown over the surface, and pressed into it by the flat side of the pruning knife, or a spatula. The bark will sooner cover the wound when protected from the influence of the weather by this or by any similar means, than when left naked and exposed *.

In general forest pruning this process is unnecessary, or rather the benefit is not sufficiently great to warrant its cost; but for particular trees connected with ornamental effects it is well worth the trouble.

Fore-shortening pruning (c) is the only one that can be usefully practised

* The fate of Mr. Forsyth's discovery of a composition applied to heal the wounds of trees, and to renovate decaying vital functions of vegetable growth, is similar to that of all other discoveries where the principles of such are pushed too far. Hence, one party ridicules it as good for nothing, and another pronounces it as infallible; while the truth lies between. In a long practice the writer of this has always used it with beneficial effects in every case where it was more than usually desired to have the bark speedily closed over a wound in a tree, but for the ordinary cases of forest-tree pruning it has never been used, and for the reasons before stated.

in reducing the size of lateral branches. When these become too crowded, or when particular ones assume a disproportionate vigour of growth and increase, it is highly useful to reduce the number or size of such overluxuriant branches. The chief point to be attended to in the operation is that of dividing the branch at a point from whence a healthy secondary branchlet springs, that it may become the leader to that branch. When the shoot is of one year's growth only, and has no lateral shoots, as in stone-fruits trained on walls, the division is made near to a strong healthy bud, which will become the conducting shoot.

For young forest-trees which require the branches to be regulated and balanced, so that one side may not have a disproportionate number or weight of branches to the other, and for trees in hedge-rows whose lateral branches extend too far on either side, injuring the quick fence or the crops of the field, fore-shortening is the most useful mode of pruning.

For non-reproductive trees, such as all the different species of the pine or fir tribe of forest-trees, this mode of pruning is improper, as the branch thus shortened does not produce a second shoot, but remains with all the objectionable properties of a snag, to the great injury, in time, of the quality of the timber. Where the purposes of evergreen masks, near the ground, in the margins of plantations are desirable, the foreshortening of the leading shoots of spruce firs, &c., is highly useful, as these trees do not afterwards increase in height, but only extend laterally by thin side branches.

The most effectual pruning instruments are a strong knife, hook, saw, and chisel. For pruning elevated branches a small saw firmly fixed to a Fig. 12.

long handle is highly useful (fig. 12, a) ; a chisel, likewise furnished with a long handle (b), and driven by a hand mallet, is very effective in taking off branches close to the stem or bole, in circumstances where the saw cannot be freely used from the upright direction of the branch, or the situation of the adjoining branches. Such are the manuals of forest-pruning. It may be justly said that in no one process of the culture of forest-trees is a just knowledge of vegetable physiology, or that of the structure and functions of the organs of vegetable life of more importance than in this one of pruning, which directly and especially applies to the assisting and directing, as well as the checking, of these functions in the production of wood as in forest-trees, and in that as well as of flowers and fruit in garden-trees. Some of the leading points of vegetable physiology which bear directly on the practice of pruning, have been mentioned in Chapter III., and full details may be obtained in the work there cited.

A timber tree, as before observed, is valued for the length, straightness, and solidity of its stem. Judicious pruning tends greatly to assist nature in the formation of the stem in this perfect state. In natural forests, boles or stems possessing properties of the most valuable kind are found, where no pruning, trenching, or any other process of culture ever was applied to the rearing of the trees. It should not, however, be concluded from this circumstance that these processes are of little value. If we examine the growth of trees in this climate, when left to the unassisted efforts of nature by the neglect of pruning and thinning, we find that but a small number only, on any given space of planted ground, attain to perfect maturity, compared to those which never arrive at any value but for fuel. The like results, though varying according to local advantages, are exhibited in the produce.

of self-planted forests. Hence, instead of an average of two or three perfect trees on any given space (suppose an acre) left by the unassisted efforts of nature, we shall have from forty to three hundred perfect trees, according to the species of timber, by the judicious application of art in the preparation of the soil and the after culture of the trees, and probably on soils, too, which, without such assistance, could never have reared a single

tree.

But though judicious pruning greatly assists in the production of a tall, straight bole, free from blemish, yet unless those circumstances before mentioned are favourable, as a vigorous, healthy constitution of the plant in its seedling stage of growth, transplantation to its timber sites at a proper age, and a soil suitably prepared and adapted to the species of tree, pruning will be found but of small efficacy*.

It was supposed that when branches are taken from a tree, so many organs of waste are cut off; and it has been practically insisted upon that, by the removal of large branches, the supply of sap and nourishment which went to their support would go to a proportionate increase of the stem. From what has already been stated respecting the course and movement of the sap, it may be unnecessary to add that this opinion is erroneous in principle, and that when a branch is cut off a portion of nourishment to the stem is cut off also specifically from that part of it which lies between the origin of the branch and the root, downwards to the root. Every branch of a tree, of whatever size it may be, not only draws nourishment and increase of substance from that part of the stem which stands under it, and from the roots, but also supplies these with a due proportion of nourishment in return, and by which their substance is increased. If the branch, whether large or small, acted merely as a drain on the vessels of the stem, and that the sap it derived from it was elevated to the leaves of the branch, and from thence returned no farther than to the origin or point of its union with the stem, then the above opinion would be correct: on the contrary, however, when it is found that the existence and increase of every twig, branch, and leaf, depends on a communication with the root, and that this communication passes through the stem downwards to that organ, and from it upwards periodically, and, moreover, that every periodical series of new vessels thus formed in the branch has a corre

* At Blair Adam pruning was resorted to, in some instances, where the trees were too far advanced in age for that operation, but it was rendered necessary, in those instances, by due attention not having been paid to those portions of the wood at an earlier period. The rule then and there followed was, not to cut off any branch which left a horizontal surface exposed: they were cut so as to have the surface of the cut in the line of the stem, with a very sharp heavy bill, at the time the sap was rising the effect of this was uniformly to secure a considerable growth of the bark over the wound before winter set in. This has obtained stem for the trees that were so treated, but it is greatly feared that when they are put to use, there may be weaknesses (in the dockyards called blanks) at the parts where the pruning has taken place.

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To make valuable wood, length of stem is essential, and the practice at Blair Adam, in consequence of experience, has been to obtain this by knife pruning in the earlier years, by bill pruning as they grow older (say to twenty-five years, when the lateral branches are easily cut and soon barked over), then by leaving them to press upon each other more severely than vigorous thinners would permit.

Two effects seem to be produced by this:-First, they draw each other up to stem ;secondly, they produce a certain decay in the lower lateral branches. When those effects are sufficiently attained, and before any risk is incurred to the power of the tree to obtain thickness, the thinning is commenced by gradually, and according to the best judgment. that can be formed, taking out the inferior trees and those best grown trees which injure each other, but taking care to do this so gradually as to secure against any chill or sudden effect of cold, so as to bring about (what may be called) the injury of being bark-bound,—the most effectual impediment to growth either in height or thickness.

sponding series of vessels formed in the stem from its point of emitting the branch to the root, it is clear that a branch not only increases in substance by the functions of its own organization, but must, of a necessity, periodically increase the substance or diameter of the trunk.

The results of practice agree with this; for if an overgrown limb or branch of a free-growing tree be pruned off, the annual increase of the diameter of the stem is not found to exceed its previous rate of increase; or the excess, if any, is not equal to the contents of wood which had been periodically formed by the branch or branches thus separated from the stem*.

It is reasonable to inquire, if the sap or nutritive fluid, periodically supplied by the roots immediately connected with the large branch taken off goes not to a proportionate increase of the stem, to what channel is it directed? It has already been mentioned (in Chapter III.) that the vessels which convey the periodical supply, and the roots which collect it, are annually produced; and the fact is, that when the primary organs and stimulus of production, (i. e. the leaves and green system of the plant,) are taken away, the annual rootlets and spongeols connected with these vessels cease to be renewed, until another branch, or series of branches, are reproduced by the vital power acting on the sap in the vessels of the stem connected with the numerous latent germs of buds in the bark near to the wound, or those dispersed in its neighbourhood. Hence it is, also, that should the season of the year of pruning the branch be that in which the sap is accumulated in the largest quantity in the leaves, and in the smallest proportion in the vessels, scarcely any reproduction of branches follows the operation of pruning; and hence, also, the different effects of summer and of winter pruning as regards this point.

When branches are not allowed to perfect one year's growth, but are pruned off annually within a bud or two of their origin with the stem, they act rather as organs of waste than those of increase of wood to the stem. But although the rate of periodical increase of the diameter of a tree be thus lessened, in a certain extent, by the loss of a full grown lateral branch, yet the increase of the stem in height or length is not thereby retarded, the ligneous vessels of the root corresponding with those of the stem or wood, probably act with but little diminished force in sending up sap to the higher extremities of the treet.

It is of great importance that branches which indicate an over-luxuriant growth should never be suffered to become large, or to exceed the medium size of the majority of the boughs of the tree, but should be pruned off close to the stem when the general interests of the plant will admit of it. These over-luxuriant branches, which, when suffered to take the lead in growth of the general boughs, become so hurtful to the perfection of growth of the stem, are evidently produced and supported by the accidental circumstance of a superior portion of soil being in the way of,

* In numerous and varied trials made by the writer to ascertain this point, the results have always gone to prove the above facts.

In a few instances, for the sake of particular effect, and to enable carriages to pass, there have been, at Blair Adam, limbs of considerable size cut from oaks of fifty years old and upwards. The cut would have been horizontal; but by making the surface of much greater size, they were made perpendicular. By great attention, all injury was prevented to the trunk, and the wounds are now healed over (at the distance of twelve or fifteen years from the date of the operation). Whether it has accelerated or retarded the diameter-growth or thickness of the trees cannot be stated, as observatian was not called to it, but they have certainly increased as much in that respect as the trees around them of the same sort and age. In one instance, the cutting of a limb, where the tree cleft, has had the effect of setting the other stem upright, so that it appears now exactly in the perpendicular line, and like the original stem of the tree.