22 STATE rOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



heavy summer pruuiiis: is followed by ii hard winter. The recent hard winters 

 have afforded many illustrations of this fact. Among tender varieties in unfa- 

 vorable localities the damage has been much more extensive to trees that have 

 been summer pruned. I abandoned spring pruning, wholly, and summer prun- 

 ing, to a great extent, many years ago and adopted in stead the early winter 

 season — preferring the month of December. 



In shortening in peach trees at that season there is almost au entire certainty 

 that the bud nearest the end will take the growth, and in cutting larger limbs, 

 although there is no apparent healing tlirough the so-called dormant season, 

 the bark never dies back from the cut, the wood is always dry and seared, and 

 wheu, at the proper season, the process of healing commences it covers a sur- 

 face of clean and sound wood. It is fair to say that this season, too, has its 

 drawbacks. When the weather is very cold the wood is exceedingly rigid, 

 ^Titll t!ic thermometer at zero the twigs are almost like steel. At such times 

 they should not be bent, neither should they be bent much when frozen at all. 

 And it is part of the art of December pruning to avoid injuring the limbs 

 ■while working among them. Tiie ruthless bending which a nurseryman dis- 

 plays in pruning his trees would be very damaging at this season. It is possi- 

 ble to do shortening in safely with the Avood hard frozen, but, in such a case, 

 a twig must be supported by the other hand as the knife passes through it. 

 With this precaution scions may be cut in the same rigid condition, but they 

 must not be carried into a warm room. 



In all the years since I have adopted this time for i)runing I find no objection 

 to it other than -what I have mentioned. 



This season may have fewer advantages in sections of country far enough 

 south to be liable to have thaws during the month suilicient to make the sap 

 active. But if any man is skeptical as to its advantages in the northerly fruit 

 growing sections, I would like to show him the results of this practice on my 

 own premises. I would not say that summer pruning should not be done at all, 

 as I know it is often done satisfactorily. But what I would say is there is not 

 that certainty about it that belongs to the early winter ])runing, owing perhaps 

 to the fact that the work of the growing tree is changing through the whole 

 season, and it is quite probable that the functions of the various organs do not 

 continue precisely the same through any two successive weeks. 



With most cultivators the early winter is the season of leisure, and going 

 over a young orchard at that time furnishes the opportunity to pocket for burn- 

 ing the caterpillar eggs and leaf rollers, which are easily seen when in the 

 absence of foliage. 



A person raising a young orchard should give each tree a careful looking 

 over each year, and it is for this main pruning that I would recommend the 

 suitable weather in December. A tree like the Northern Spy so liable to throw 

 out water sprouts, when pruned in winter I would, if very thrifty, still prefer 

 to prune in summer before it sets its terminal buds, and not after that event. 



In speaking of the object to be attained by pruning I will leave out all the 

 fine things usually said about "pruning for wood" and "pruning for fruit," 

 for neitlier of them are objects that pertain to the business of the orchardist. 

 The "wood'" will come with good cultivation, the "fruit" in due season. 

 Neither have I time to quarrel with anybody about high or low heads. But Ave 

 wish to make a perfect tree. That i)erfection to the orchardist should mean 

 the ability to carry and ripen the heaviest and fairest crops of fruit for many 

 Buccessive years without injury to the tree. 



The "inverted umbrella" form of head I see aimed at in many orchards in 



