to the considerable motion or waving of the stem by wind promoting deposition, evincing one of the deep balancings of material cause and effect, or circumstantial regulation, which mocks the wisdom of the wise. We admit, also, that pruning, in the first place, impedes formation of flower-buds, and will sometimes thus prevent exhaustion of trees by seeding, which is so prejudicial both to the quality and quantity of the new wood deposit; but the consequent greater length of stem, greater exposure to evaporation, constriction of bark, and slenderer connecting tubes between leaf and roots, all tend subsequently to promote formation of flower-buds, although the removal of the lower branches may for a few seasons serve to {302} prevent this. We therefore consider pruning, excepting in a very slight degree, to guide to one leader, and to remove the sickly, lower, moss-covered branches a few seasons earlier than they would have dropped off in the common course of decay, to be generally preventive of quantity of wood-deposit, even of common marketable timber, in any considerable number of years, although pruning to a greater degree is often necessary where fine clean timber is required. Our author’s next implied assumption, that a tree produces best timber in a soil and climate _natural_ to it (we suppose by this is meant the soil and climate where the kind of tree is naturally found growing), is, we think, at least exceedingly hypothetical; and, judging from our facts, incorrect. The natural soil and climate of a tree, is often very far from being the soil and climate most suited to its growth, _and is only the situation where it has greater power of occupancy, than any other plant whose germ is present_. The pines do not cover the pine barrens of America, because they prefer such soil, or grow most luxuriant in such soil; they would thrive much better, that is, grow faster, in the natural allotment of the oak and the walnut, _and also mature to a better wood in this deeper richer soil_. But the {303} oak and the walnut banish them to inferior soil from greater power of occupancy in good soil, as the pines, in their turn, banish other plants from inferior sands—some to still more sterile location, by the same means of greater powers of occupancy in these sands. One cause considerably affecting the natural location of certain kinds of plants is, that only certain soils are suited to the preservation of certain seeds, throughout the winter or wet season. Thus many plants, different from those which naturally occupy the soil, would feel themselves at home, and would beat off intruders, were they once seated. We have had indubitable proof in this country, that _Scots fir, grown upon good deep loam, and strong till_ (what our author would call the natural soil of the oak), _is of much better quality, and more resinous, than fir grown on poor sand_ (what he would call the natural soil of the