What is "loppings"

Usage examples of "loppings".

The weather, for many a day and night, has been so wet that the trees seem wet through, and the soft loppings and prunings of the woodman's axe can make no crash or crackle as they fall.

For, if the only slitting of one ear in a stag hath been found sufficient to propagate the defect through a whole forest, why should we wonder at the greatest consequences, from so many loppings and mutilations, to which the ears of our fathers, and our own, have been of late so much exposed?