1743

A DISCOURSE.

BOOK. Ill

In sum, you are to spare as many likely trees for timber as with dis-cretion you can. In the mean time, there are some who find it not soprofitable to permit so many timber-trees to stand in the heart of copses,but on the skirts, and near the edges, where their branches may freelyspread and have air, without dripping and annoying the subnascent crop:nor should they be shred, which commonly makes them grow knotty.—This is a note of the ingenious Mr. Nourse.

Now as to the felling, (beginning at one side, that the carts may enterwithout detriment to what you leave standing,) the under-wood may becut from January at the latest, till Mid-March or April; or from Mid-September, till near the end of November; so as all be avoided byMidsummer at the latest, and then fenced, (where the rows and brush lielonger unbound, or made up, you endanger the lofs of a second spring,)and not to stay so long as usually they are a-clearing, that the young andthe seedlings may not suffer the least interruption ; and, if the winter,previous to your felling copses, you preserve them well from cattle, itwill recompense your care.

It is advised not to cut off the browse-wood of Oaks in copses, but tosuffer it to fall off, as where trees stand very close it usually does : I dojiot well comprehend why yet it should be spared so long.

"When you espie a cluster of plants growing as it were all in a bunch,it shall suffice that you preserve the fairest sapling, cutting all the restaway. And if it chance to be a Chesnut, Service, or like profitable tree,clear it from the droppings and incumbrances of these trees, that it maythrive the better: Then, as you pafs along, prune and trim up all theyoung wavers, covering such roots as lie bare and exposed with freshmould. There are some wdio direct the lopping of young Oaks at a com-petent distance from the stem, and that while the wounds are healing,this would advantage the under-wood j but I cannot say it would bewithout prejudice to timber.

Cut not above half a foot from the ground, nay the closer the better,and that to the south, slope-wise, stripping up such as you spare fromtheir extravagrant branches, water-boughs, &c. that hinder the growthof others. Always remember (before you so much as enter upon this

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