Winter Meeting. 1213 



near as possible to the shape of some well grown tree of the same va- 

 \ riety. The following March when the trees are two years planted they 

 should again be gone over and pruned with the same end in view; that is 

 to make a well shaped head, cutting out cross limbs, heading back a too 

 rampant growing branches ; and where branch crooks or grows in a wroT.g 

 direction it can usually be remedied, if taken in time, by cutting back 

 to a bud that will start and carry its growth in the right direction. 

 The third year the same treatment should be given, after which but 

 little pruning Avill be needed, except to remove dead limbs, but these 

 should not and with proper treatment will not be abundant for many 

 years. In pruning the cherry, like all other trees, no fixed rule can be 

 made that will apply to all, as no two trees are exactly alike ; but the 

 cherry being one of the most perverse of all fruit trees it is best for 

 the pruner to have a well grown, full sized specimen of the variety he is 

 pruning in his mind ; this gives him the natural shape of the tree and 

 he should so train his young sprout as to cause it to assume its natural 

 shape and at the same time make a well formed tree of its kind. 



One of our modern horticulturalists has said that the shape of the 

 tree makes little difference with its bearing qualities and that each 

 grower may form his own ideal shape of tree, and prune accordingly, 

 but in pruning the cherry I would suggest that the pruner should have 

 many ideals, as it is much more easy to make an ideal to fit a particular 

 tree than it is to make all cherry trees grow to fit a particular ideal. 

 ]!^o man should undertake to prune and shape the head of a young tree 

 until he has studied the bud arrangement and growing characteristics 

 of the family of trees he is about to prune, as the shaping of the top 

 depends materially on the position of the upper head left after the 

 branch is clipped ; and in shaping the heads of young trees particular at- 

 tention should be given that the cut is made so as to leave the upper 

 bud in a position to start the new branch off in the right direction. 



After the cherry orchard is planted the next thing is cultivation, 

 and this should begin immediately and should be by a thorough going 

 over with a smoothing harrow or some other shallow working tool so as 

 to loosen .the ground which has become more or less hardened by tramp- 

 ing while the planting was being done ; again pulverizing two or three 



