I doubt not but some of my readers will stamp this advice with their unqualified disapprobation. It may be very good and correct notwithstanding. My own experience, as well as that of many others whom I have consulted, convinces me that the notion, which so extensively prevails, as to the injurious effects of pruning, is _decidedly incorrect_. It may have had its origin in the evidence of injury to timber, which has been furnished by _injudicious pruning_; and thus what would have else been universally seen to be necessary, has come to be almost universally condemned: but this is a common error, and has been too often shown, to render it necessary for me to expose it here. Some very valuable observations on pruning have been published by Mr. Main, in his excellent little work, entitled “The Forest Planter and Pruner’s Assistant.” At page 53, the following paragraph occurs: “But the only part of a woodman’s duty which does not appear to be well defined, or at least not generally agreed upon by practical men, is relative to the necessity of carefully pruning and managing the trees during the first fifteen or twenty years of their growth.” I quote the last member of the above with entire approbation: that is, so far as the necessity for pruning is recognized in it: and I further think, that the reasons which are given by Mr. Main for pruning, and the manner in which he has illustrated his principle—the clear and satisfactory way in which he has treated the whole subject—entitle him to the confidence, and to the thanks, of all who are interested in the growth of trees. But I am very far indeed from agreeing with him in the opinion so adventurously given, that “the best methods of preparing the ground for the reception of the plants—manner of transplanting—the soils most suitable for each species—are all _thoroughly_ and _universally_ understood.” My belief is, on the contrary, that comparatively few planters, or woodmen, _do_ “_thoroughly_” understand these matters. If they did, their practice would not be so extensively wrong as it is. If it were so, why have planters so widely differed? Why is there seen such discrepancy in their modes of management? But what does Mr. Main wish his readers to understand by the term “_practical men_”? If he refer to those who have the oversight and the direction of the practical operations included in the “preparation of the soil for the reception of the plants—manner of transplanting—the soils most suitable for each species, &c.”; and if he wish to convey the idea that, by this class of persons, these points are “_thoroughly and universally understood_,” I hold him to be wholly and widely wrong: but if he only mean that _scientific men_, who have well studied the subject, and who have written upon it, and _really intelligent woodmen_, are agreed as to the best practice, I do not greatly differ from him; nor do I conceive that the main point, at which I have aimed