Where there are large masses of wood to regulate and arrange, much skill, taste, and judgment, are requisite, to enable the proprietors to preserve only what is really beautiful and picturesque, and to remove all that is superfluous. Most of our native woods, too, have grown so closely, and the trees are consequently so much drawn up, that should the improver thin out any portion, at once, to single trees, he will be greatly disappointed if he expects them to stand long; for the first severe autumnal gale will almost certainly prostrate them. The only method, therefore, is to allow them to remain in groups of considerable size at first, and to thin them out as is finally desired, when they have made stronger roots and become more inured to the influence of the sun and air.*
