WINTER MEETING. 307 



highly important that the leaves should be kept in a healthly, growiog 

 condition, and that iujary to them weakens the tree. 



The fact that the removal of healthy leaves, in summer, has a 

 weakening effect, should govern, in a measure, our methods of prun- 

 ing. It is a well known fact among horticulturists that pruning in 

 winter favors vigorous wood growth and that pruning in summer op- 

 poses vigorous growth. This has given rise to the familiar maxims 

 "prune in winter for wood and in summer for fruit." The somewhat 

 weakening effect of summer pruning ( which removes leaves ) is likely 

 (in common with any other practice that slightly checks wood growth) 

 to stimulate in the tree an abundant setting of fruit buds. If a part 

 of the branches of a tree are removed in winter, the large supply of 

 starch stored up in the roots and trunk has a smaller number of buds 

 left to push into growth in spring, consequently each bud receives a 

 greater supply. After growth starts, the large root system also ap- 

 plies is uaabated energies to fewer branches and they are stimulated 

 into utilizing a greater amount of sap, and consequently into more rapid 

 wood growth. 



A wound heals by the growing layer lapping over and covering it. 

 Since this covering for the wound is produced by food brought down 

 from the leaves, between the bark and sap wood, wounds heal most 

 rapidly from above, downward. If the top of a small tree is cutback, 

 it should be cut just above, and slopiog downward away from a bud. 

 If the part cut away has branches, the cut should be made just above 

 a branch, so the leaves of this branch may digest and bring down the 

 nourishment to cause the healing of the wound. 



Different methods of cutting trees and branches on the station 

 grounds last year show that where a bare stub is left above a bud or 

 branch, the end of this stub will not heal over, while if there is a grow- 

 ing branch just at the wound, this branch will afford the material for 

 quickly healing the wound. In removing a side branch, if a knot or 

 stub is left it will not heal over until the tree has increased in diameter 

 sufficiently to lap over it. It is best then to cut the branch well in, so 

 the growing layer of the trunk can quickly begin to cover the wound. 

 A branch usually has a bulge where it joins the main tree. Hence cut 

 close to the tree the wound will be larger than if cut a little way out, 

 and at right angles to the branch. Repeated trials last summer showed 

 that the larger wounds made by cutting close to the trunk, healed most 

 rapidly. J. C. Whitten, Columbia, Mo. 



