APPLICATION TO CUT SURFACES. 205 



this season on that account. It may be said that yon may 

 trim earlier than that — in April or May. Well, the disadvan- 

 tasre or danjrer of trimminof in that season is, that a tree 

 trimmed in April or May, before the growth has commenced, 

 will bleed almost as surely as a grape-vine pruned in spring, 

 and the sap will run down the trunk of the tree, and it seems 

 to me that for some cause, I do not know what, that is as poi- 

 sonous to the tree as anything can be ; and when you have 

 got the sap running, you cannot stop it by any application 

 that I have found. It will run, not only that season, but the 

 next, and your tree is liable to be ruined. To prevent this, I 

 have pruned at this season of the year, and I have made an 

 application, not of clay, as suggested by Mr. Ordway, but of 

 gum-shellac, dissolved in alcohol, to about the consistency of 

 molasses. 



Mr. Ordway. Will that absorb the wet ? 



Mr. Hills. No, sir. It will harden in half an hour as 

 hard as glass. It will keep out wet and keep in wet. 



]\Ir. Ordway. If your tree bleeds from the wound, when 

 you cut off a limb, your preparation don't stop the sap rnnning 

 down on the bark of the tree and killing it. Clay will do 

 that. 



Mr. Hills. I see now what the idea is. You miirht as 

 well say that the best application to make after a liml) has 

 been taken off by the surgeon, is clay. I do not intend that 

 the wound shall ever bleed at all ; I mean to tie it up at 

 once. For that reason, I should never think of pruning 

 a tree on a wet day, and I would caution everybody against 

 it. Take a good bright day, and a mild day, when the tree 

 is dry, and everything is dry. The most convenient way I 

 have found of using the preparation is to fix a sponge on a 

 piece of wire and put it into the stopple of a large-mouthed 

 bottle, which you can fill with the preparation, and when 

 you have cut off a limb, take out the stopple and brush the 

 sponge over the wound, just as you would use sponge-black- 

 ing. If it is a bright day, in half an hour it will harden so 

 that you cannot make any impression upon it with your 

 thumb-nail. The sap cannot get out, and it will exclude the 

 wet from the outside. That is the way I would stop its run- 

 ning. I would not recommend that season except for that 



