330 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Mr. Wiley : I think Mr. Kellogg's paper is one of the best lie ever read 

 on the subject. He comes the nearest to it. Of course, a man can not 

 get it all. I visited Mr. Morrill's orchard at a time when it showed what 

 pruning did, and they had gone the nearest to the last point in pruning 

 of anything I ever saw. The leaves were wider and longer on his trees, 

 but the trees were not injured — they were just about as far as they could 

 go without injuring; they were cut back and kept within bounds. The 

 bodies were large and smooth, and the tops were cut more than anything 

 I ever saw. 



Mr. Morrill : Butchered, my neighbors saj. 



Mr. Wiley: Yes, butchered. They were well swept out, I never saw 

 such sweeping out of tops, and heading back, in my life; but I saw two 

 results — the foliage was double the usual size, and the fruit was double 

 the size it naturally would have been if let grow the way they do in 

 the bush. 



Mr. Sherwood: I would like to ask Mr. Kellogg concerning a point 

 that seems to be open to discussion a good deal now — the advisability 

 of pruning before the last of March. I have experimented a little myself, 

 this year, to see how it would result next year. My ideas are in accord 

 with Mr. Kellogg's, that limbs that are trimmed in the winter and 

 allowed to remain dormant before the vitality of the tree starts, are a 

 hindrance to the tree's growth. That is my view of it, and I think it 

 agrees with Mr. Kellogg's. I would like to know if Mr. Kellogg ever 

 experimented along that line so that he knows whether it was a detri- 

 ment to the tree to trim in December or January, or any time it is con- 

 venient and the weather permits? 



Mr. Kellogg: I can not draw on my own personal experience for that; 

 but in the trees I have seen pruned in that way I have always seen a 

 long black stub, a portion which was killed back, and it is difficult to 

 get growth there; while, if pruning is done just before growth begins, 

 the wound will be covered and new branches form easily. 



A Member: I would like to ask if they would follow the same system 

 of pruning in plum culture? This seems to be especially in regard to 

 peaches. 



The President: I do, successfully. 



'Mr. Ramsdell: Does this apply entirely to peaches, this winter prun- 

 ing? Would you prune peaches in the winter time? 



Mr, Kellogg: Now, I would rather Mr. Morrill would answer that 

 question, because he has been at this business, and we don't want theory; 

 we want practical work ; but, in reference to the question as to whether 

 this theory will apply to peach orchards, I simply say that it applies 

 to every tree that bears fruit, clear down to the blackberry and raspberry 

 or anything else. I am going to have an apple orchard and that is the 

 way I am going to prune it. I am going to prune it every year, I am 

 going into the trees and thin out everything so that the sun shall have 

 free access everywhere in tJie apple tree, just as it does in the peach tree. 

 Mr. Morrill has pruned his pear trees and apple trees, and so has Mr. 

 Stearns, and I would like to hear from him on that question. He has been 

 practicing it with great success. 



Mr. Stearns: I was just going to answer this gentleman in regard 

 to plums. It is just as applicable to plums as to peaches, that first 



