Fencing should follow up at once the work of planting, as, if the young trees are allowed to remain unprotected for any length of time, they get injured by the farm stock. The fences may be of any desired kind, but, as they are only required for a few years, a simple erection made of small larch poles about 8 ft. long, driven firmly into the ground in a circle around the tree, say, 18 in. from the stem, and made fast to hoops of wood at top, and half-way up, will be found sufficient. Wooden erections are, perhaps, preferable to those made of iron for fencing hedgerow trees, as they seldom require renewing, for by the time the fence has decayed the trees will, in most cases, be out of harm’s way. For shelter and shade clumps in fields probably the best trees to use are the oak and sycamore, the value of timber produced being also a valuable asset. =Pruning and After-Management.=—For at least the first ten years after planting, careful and regular pruning of hedgerow and field timber should in all cases be attended to, bearing in mind that timely attention in this way will alone obviate the necessity for heavy prunings at any future stage of the tree’s growth. Early and judicious pruning is necessary to the trees in question; for it is well known that if branches are allowed to ramify at will, greater injury to the underlying herbage must be committed than where timely pruning and shortening of all straggling branches has been attended to. Early summer pruning, say, in the month of June, is to be recommended, as at that time, owing to the active circulation of the sap, the wounds heal up much more quickly than when the operation is performed at any other season of the year. The pruning should be performed by a person who is thoroughly conversant with the work, haphazard cutting and hewing, by an inexperienced hand, and at any season, being injurious. If the young trees have been well attended to in the matter of pruning whilst in the nursery border, little or no attention will afterwards be required—at least for a number of years. The main object in pruning both hedgerow and field trees is to develop a valuable main stem which is only to diverge into branches at a given height from the ground, and to prevent the overgrowth of straggling branches farther up, so as to maintain a symmetrical and rather fastigiate head. CHAPTER XI ORNAMENTAL PLANTING As the beauty and picturesqueness of an estate are so dependent on the disposition of its single trees, groups and plantations, the forester should never lose sight of the fact, even when dealing with plantations that are mainly intended for the value of the timber produced.