SECRETARY'S REPORT. 87 



In both cases the true philosophy of life is to begin early and 

 proceed with caution. The pruning-knife of the pomologist, 

 like the amputating instrument of the surgeon, should be used 

 only to answer the demands of stern necessity. Hence large 

 limbs should not generally be removed from old trees, on the 

 same principle that severe surgical operations are commonly more 

 dangerous to aged people than to those in the morning of life. 



Remove from a young tree a limb, and the activity of its sap 

 soon heals the wound, and restores the equilibrium. But it is 

 not so with an old tree. To injudicious pruning, or to the utter 

 neglect of it, we think may be ascribed, in a great measure, 

 the unproductiveness and premature decay of so many of our 

 old orchards in New England. 



We have space only for a few illustrations of the importance 

 of skill in this art. Some varieties require but little pruning, 

 naturally assuming a handsome form, as the Buffum, the Law- 

 rence, the Bartlett, and the Meriam pears. Some, as we have 

 already intimated, bear only on alternate years, the superabun- 

 dance of their crop preventing the formation of fruit spurs for 

 the succeeding year. These may be made to bear annually by 

 cutting out one-half of the spurs on the bearing year ; or, if 

 we deprive every other tree in an orchard of all its fruit blos- 

 soms on that year, one-half the trees therein will bear one year, 

 and the remainder the next. This remark is peculiarly appli- 

 cable to the Baldwin apple, which, in most localities, for the 

 reason above named, bear only on alternate years. 



By a similar process, the quality of fruit may be often much 

 improved. Witness the Passe* Colmar pear, so redundant in 

 its fruit-spurs as to require the removal of a part of them to 

 obtain fruit of excellence. 



As to the season most appropriate for pruning some say it 

 should be done in the time of florescence ; others, when the 

 foliage is falling : still others, in the winter, when the sap is 

 inactive. But our judgment is in favor of early spring just 

 before the sap begins to rise ; or of midsummer immediately 

 after the first growth. In the latter case, the sap has become 

 thick by elaboration, the tree will not bleed, and the wound 

 will heal more readily than at any other season of the year. 

 But at whatever time pruning is done, all limbs larger than a 

 man's thumb should be covered with wax, clay, or other sub- 

 stance, to protect them from the weather. 



