do not grow in layers. Nevertheless writers on foresting confidently recommend particular methods for everything, an example of which will be found in the following directions given by Gavin Cree, a well-known Scotch forester.

"Were thinning properly attended to, it would do much to accelerate the growth of trees; but in most cases it is neglected. I am of opinion, however, that in addition to thinning, pruning is advantageous in promoting the size and value of timber. Stopping, or breaking off the points of the branches, fulfils, to a certain extent, the purpose of pruning, although I do not think it can so fully accomplish the benefit which pruning will effect. The great object of the forester ought to be to increase the digesting powers of the plant, and thereby administer to its health and vigour. Now I maintain that shortening the branches multiplies the quantity of leaves, and, at the same time, gives greater activity to the sap. A large branch surely puts forth more leaves than a small one, for by shortening, the number of twigs or branches is multiplied almost indefinitely, so that the quantity of foliage, in the aggregate, is far greater on the pruned than on the unpruned plant; while the foliage is more healthful and efficient; presenting leaves as broad as two or three of those on the branches which are of an extravagant length. The principle of stopping and shortening seems to imply a similar design in those who practise the different methods; namely, to keep the branches within due bounds. The difference is, the person who stops them takes no more from the large than from the small branch; whereas the pruner curtails each tier of branches to a uniform length; the tiers extending in breadth as they descend, in the form of a cone. This, at least, is my method. I consider it to be beyond the bounds of human ingenuity to act successfully in this case without some regular system. I shorten the shoot next the top to one half the length of the leader, and allow the lower tier to extend farther than the one above it, till I reach the undermost, which is, of course, the broadest. When the tree is about eighteen feet high, and fifteen inches in circumference, I cut off the lowest tier close to the stem, and continue yearly to cut off a tier (regularly) upwards. I have by this means raised hard wood to as great a height, within the same time, as Larch; and have not discovered, either by observation or otherwise, that trees were ever raised so rapidly to the same altitude, as those trained on the above plan. They sometimes grew ten feet in the course of three years." Mr. Cree says nothing about the unsoundness of timber thus pruned when eighteen feet high.

Better directions are given by an old forester in the Gardeners' Chronicle, writing under the name of Philo-Sylva. His words are these:"The only rule to attend to is to keep the top taper, preserving the leading shoot clear and free from clefts, and the bole from all the

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largest branches, leaving those only of the smaller kind that are requisite for the health and support of the tree, and clearing the tree, from the bottom, of all its branches as it advances in age. But the bole should be cleared very slowly at first when the trees are young. Only keep the branches that are left thereon small by often pruning, so as not to injure the tree when it becomes timber. By the heads of trees being kept tapering when young, the rapidity of the growth is greatly increased, on account of the sap being confined to the most useful points, and not allowed to spread in support of large unnecessary branches. By attending to these rules, and the operation of pruning being executed every year, the bole will be extended to a great height, and at the end the grand object attained, viz., the production of sound unblemished timber. The proportion which will be found to be most consistent with full-sized trees is fifty feet trunk to thirty-five feet of head. It is of the utmost importance that trees should have circumference of stem in suitable proportion to their height. If the circumference is one inch for every fifteen inches in height, so much the better. Trees should be examined every year till they are fifteen inches in circumference; the highest will then be fully eighteen feet."

2. Foreshortening.-This differs from pruning inasmuch as it does not cut back a shoot to its origin, but merely removes one third or half of it, the lower part remaining furnished with twigs which contribute to the formation of timber. This, which is advocated by Billington, undoubtedly deserves to form a part of the process of good timber-growing, provided it is so managed that the branch does not die back. Its real object is to enable leaves to be formed and nevertheless to produce the advantageous effects of pruning. It preserves a lateral branch alive for some years, but diminishes its rate of growth, so that it may be eventually taken off, having done its work, without inflicting any extensive wound; or it may preserve a branch alive as long as the tree of which it forms a part continues to exist, and thus enables the forester to remove a limb without injuring the main trunk.

When it is possible to ensure the life of these foreshortened limbs, the method is open to no serious objection; but in practice it is found that such limbs are apt to lose their small wood and to die, in which case they produce all the mischief that follows snagging or lopping. Sir Joseph Paxton, Prof. Henslow, and others have long since shown how likely this is

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to occur, and the practice is now employed by first-class foresters only under very special circumstances.

3. Snagging or Lopping.-Ignorant woodmen, when called upon to remove a branch, lop it off nearly down to the trunk which produced it. More skilful men cut it off at some distance from the trunk, leaving a spray on it to keep it alive; but the spray is apt to die, and then the more skilful practice becomes undistinguishable from the woodman's lopping. The first is merely a foreshortening, which cannot be made to preserve a permanent effect and fails in its intention. When this happens it is the worst of all known methods of pruning, the effect of which is represented in the accompanying cuts. The knots in deal are well known; when a squared piece of deal is converted into planking, it is sometimes full of knots which drop out as at Fig. LXXXVII. These are sections of dead or dying branches which became imbedded in sound wood in consequence of their having been left by nature in the unpruned, closely-packed natural forest. Had such branches been removed, no faults like these would have been discoverable. They sometimes render deals almost worthless.

Fig. LXXXVII.

The consequence of leaving snags is exhibited at Fig. LXXXVIII., which fully illustrates the meaning of the following opinions.

"There is a method of pruning," said Mr. Sandys, the skilful and experienced forester at Holkham, "still practised by some persons, of leaving a foot or more of the branch on the tree to die and rot off, which if only an inch in diameter may take several years to accomplish, during which time the stem increases, and when the stump falls down, a hole is left as deep as the tree has grown since the snagging, which hole must have time to fill up after the rotten branch is gone. The healing of the wound is consequently delayed, and the defect in the timber greater. Instead of taking off a large branch by the stem, a great

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SNAGGING OR LOPPING.

part of it may be cut off at a distance from it, leaving a small side branch to draw the sap and keep it alive, which is better

than leaving a snag; but this method should seldom be practised, being only the result of former bad management."

"All scientific planters," wrote Mr. (now Sir Joseph) Paxton, several years since, "are of the same opinion as to the propriety of removing dead or decayed branches. Whenever dead branches are found on any tree, they cannot be too soon removed; and even Fir plantations, which when thickly planted are generally self-pruned, will be improved by having all the dead wood pruned off quite close to the stem."

Some years ago, Lord Braybrooke submitted to the examination of Prof. Henslow, than whom no man possesses a sounder judgment, a number of specimens of timber in which the branches had been allowed to die back. The result of that examination, now before me, was as follows:-"In the specimens sent for my inspection, the foreshortened branches were all in a state of decay, and where the experiment was pronounced complete, the stumps had become imbedded in new wood which had closed over them, exactly as it does over the surface of the cut produced by close-pruning. Now the only difference between the two results appears to me to be this: that in the close-pruning we have two clean surfaces, the one of the old and the other of the new wood, brought into close contact; whilst in the case of the foreshortened branch, we have the decayed remains of a rotten stump surrounded by an irregular surface of the new wood."

4. Amputating.-When a branch is broken and dead and requires removal, it should be cut off close to the trunk; but this should never be done if it is possible to avoid it, and it never is necessary except in consequence of previous mismanagement; it is even doubtful whether it can ever be justified. Assuming, however, that it is inevitable, then it is certain that the amputation should be effected by as perpendicular a cut as it is possible to effect. It is an axiom in physiology, that live tissue cannot form an organic union with that which is dead. If in amputations shoots are not removed close to the stem, the remaining part, or snag, dies; and the lips of the wound will not heal; or if the wound is healed externally, either a cavity or a piece of dead wood remains behind. On the other hand, if the branch is cut off close to the trunk, the permanent injury sustained by the tree is a disunion of the tissue for a space equal to the diameter of the