TIME TO PRUNE. 195 



Mr. Ordway. I wish to take issue with the gentlemnn on 

 pruning trees. He says June is the best time, and I agree 

 with hira there. He says that farmers never trim at that time 

 of year, and he is generally correct in that idea. But when 

 he says trim at this time of year, or any time during the 

 winter, he is decidedly wrong in that respect. If you trim a 

 tree in the fall of the year, at this time, or any time during 

 December, January or February, and go to it in May or 

 June of the year following, and take your thumb and scratch 

 upon the bark where you have taken a limb off, you will 

 invariably scratch off dead bark of the thickness of an eighth 

 or quarter of an inch. All the bark would have grown, if you 

 had cut it off in April, May or June. I tried that in my 

 orchard in 1856. There were some places where I cut off a 

 limb that the bark died back a quarter of an inch, which had 

 never been known when the trees had been pruned in the 

 spring or in the summer. It is a mistake to trim your trees 

 in the winter, and it is a mistake to head in your trees in the 

 fall ; they will die back just as surely as 3'ou do it. If you 

 cut off a limb as big as your finger with your shears, that limb 

 will die out. I never saw a case where it failed to do that. 



Something has been said about apple-trees bearing the odd 

 year. What time of year does a tree throw out its Iruit-buds, 

 to make the blossoms ? Can any man say that he can tell ? 

 When does the fruit-bud form? It forms during the growth 

 of the tree. Where the canker-worm gets on it, he leaves 

 about the 18th or 20th of June, and your tree hardly ever 

 grows much after the first of July, — hardly ever, it does 

 sometimes ; and the canker-worm will take the growth of the 

 tree, destroy its foliage, and destroy every particle of fruit, 

 if you have the canker-worm as thick as I have them ; but 

 the moment he is gone, the tree starts a new life, it makes a 

 growth, if you have good ground, and you get your bud. 

 Therefore you change the bearing of your tree, if this happens 

 to occur upon an even year. As long ago as I can remember, 

 my father had a Baldwin tree that sent out two branches 

 from the bottom, and one side bore one year and the other 

 the other, just as regularly as the years came round. That 

 was in West Newbury. The fact became known, and trees 

 were grafted with scions cut from those two branches, and 



