spair. The copse-wood, on the contrary, enjoys a species of immortality, purchased, indeed, like that of Nourjahad in the Oriental tale, by intervals of abeyance. Its lease of existence may be said to be purchased by fine and renewal, a portion of it being cut in succession every twenty years. The eye is no doubt wounded for the time by the fall of the portion annually destined for the market, but the blank may be masked by leaving occasional standards, and nature hastens to repair it. In the course of three years, the copse which has been felled generally again assumes its tufted appearance, and in two or three years more, is as flourishing and beautiful as ever.

But the sylva cædua possesses more solid advantages. In the first place, there are doubtless many situations in mountainous districts admirably calculated to grow wood, but where it would be injudicious to raise full-grown timber, on account of the difficulty, nay, impossibility, of bringing it into the market. Bark, on the contrary, a light substance and easily transported, can be brought from the most remote and inaccessible recesses of the forest, without the expense of conveyance greatly diminishing the profit of the planter. The peeled timber is also an object in those districts where fuel is scarce, besides the demand for charcoal in others, and the consumption of the larger pieces in country work. In many places there is a demand for the oak boughs and twigs, to make what is called the pyro-ligneous acid, now so generally used instead of vinegar.

Besides their certain return of annual profit, copse-woods, when formed on entailed estates, have the great advantage of affording to every heir of entail in possession, his fair share of this species of property, while, at the same time, it is almost impossible for him to get more. Large woods of standing trees are planted by prudence and foresight, and maintained and preserved by the respect of successive proprietors, in order, perhaps, ultimately to supply the necessities of some extravagant or dissipated possessor, the shame and ruin of the line. But in the case of copse-wood, such an unthrifty heir of LINNE" can only receive the produce of what regularly falls to be cut during his time; nor can the amount be increased, or the time of payment accelerated, either by the rapacity or necessity of the proprietor. This is a subject well worth the consideration of those who are anxious about the preservation of their landed estate in their own family.

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Thus it will be observed, that each of these several modes of planting has its own peculiar advantages, and far from being bigoted to any one of them, to the total exclusion of others, the proprietor ought, before commencing his operations, to consider maturely, whether his purpose should be to raise a standing wood, to improve his pasturage by the use of larches exclusively, or to crop the land by means of copse-wood, under regular and systematical management. Where plantations of a moderate extent are concerned, the question must be determined by local circumstances, but a

large plan affords means of embracing the whole, and can hardly be accounted perfect without exhibiting specimens of the dark majesty of the forest, the gentler beauties of the copse, and the succession of verdant pastures, intermixed with stately and valuable larch-trees, which the Athol system is so well qualified to introduce. By one or other, or all of these methods, the utmost capabilities of the soil will be brought forth, and the greatest change induced in the face of nature which it is possible for human reason to devise, or human power to execute.

We should not have accomplished the task which we proposed, did we not mention, though superficially, the two grand operations of pruning and thinning, without which every one now allows there can be no rapidly growing plantations, or clean, valuable wood. They are both subjects much better understood than they were twenty years ago, when it was common, for example, to prune off all the under branches of a plant, without considering that this severe operation was destroying the means with which nature provides the plant for drawing up the sap, and thus depriving it of the means of increasing in size; while, with similar incongruity, the upper branches were left to form a thick round head, subject to the action of every storm that blows. Since the publication of Mr Pontey's treatise, every one worthy to possess a pruning knife is aware that the top of the young plant must be thinned for the encouragement of the leading shoot, and the side boughs only removed in cases where

they are apt to rival the stem, or rob it of too much nourishment; and in other cases made so to balance each other, that the tree, when swayed by the wind, may, like a well-trimmed vessel, as speedily as possible recover its equilibrium. We have not, indeed, found that the system of very severe pruning, and removing very many of the side branches, has, under our observation, added so much to the thickness and weight of the stem as it appears to have done under Mr Pontey's management in better climates; but the general principle which he lays down is indisputable, and has produced much advantage. Neither is it necessary now to renew the caution, that the pruning work should be entirely performed by the hand-knife, or by the chisel and mallet, and, consequently, during the infancy of the plant. The woodsman can scarce commit a greater blunder than by postponing this most necessary operation until it becomes indispensable to employ the axe, when ten men will not perform the work of one at the earlier period, and when the wounds which might have been inflicted without injury in the infancy of the plant, are sure permanently to disfigure and deteriorate the young tree.

But it may not be so unnecessary to remind the young planter, that the safe and proper time for pruning hard-wood is the summer months, when the sap, having ascended, is stationary in the tree, and before it begins again to descend. It is true,

all authors agree that to prune a tree while the sap is in motion, either upwards or downwards, is the ready way to cause it to bleed to death. But

there are authors and practical foresters, who continue to hold the heretical opinion that winter is as safe, or even a safer period for pruning, than summer.. Nicol, for example, in his useful Planter's Kalendar, falls into this error, and enjoins pruning during the winter months. Yet his experience might have convinced him of its inexpedience. During summer, there always exudes, upon the face of the wound, a thin, gummy fluid, which in a few days seals it up, and skins it over. We have never observed that the plant has any tendency to renew the branches removed at this season. But where the same cut is inflicted in winter, the plant is apt to suffer from the action of the frost upon the raw wound; and, moreover, when the spring months arrive, the forester will observe numerous new shoots pushed out from the scar of that which has been removed, and is thus apprised that his task is but imperfectly performed. As to the necessity of pruning, in general, it is proved by a single glance at the short stems and overgrown heads of the greater part of the oaks found in natural woods, compared with the close upright trunks of those which have felt, in infancy, a judicious application of the pruning-knife. The part of the tree, in the former case, which can be sawn out as useful timber, is not, perhaps, above three feet in length, while the stem of the latter has been trained upwards to the height of fourteen. It is in vain to contradict these facts by an appeal to nature. Nature is equally favourable to all her productions. It is the same to her whether