334 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



her limbs purposely to benefit herself. Anybody that understands it 

 will know better than that; it seems to me that anybody who under- 

 stands natural things will know that. Kow, in the spring I would not 

 wait until the sap was dashing up and down the trees, but when the warm 

 sun comes a little, and the bark is a little softened and the sap just 

 l)egins to think of starting, take them then, and in a moment they are 

 healed. If 30U are going to cut my arm off I will choose to have it done 

 in warm weather. 



Mr. Sailor: I commenced about thirty years ago to raise peaches, 

 and I have followed the plan of cutting back one third to one half. 1 

 begin in December and work until March, and I never could see a particle 

 of liarm, I never saw a particle of trouble from winter pruning, com- 

 mencing in December. I have followed the Downing principle for a 

 number of years, and I never saw any trouble in pruning back one third 

 to one half. 



Mr. Ramsdell: My orchard is on Grand Traverse bay. It 

 is in latitude forty-four degrees and forty minutes north, and j)erhaps 

 what would be a failure there might not be somewhere else; but if I 

 prune a peach tree in October or after that time, that is a dead tree sure, 

 next year. If I prune them and take the limbs that have been broken 

 by either storms or weight of fruit, as soon as the fruit season is over, I 

 find they grow out thriftily, and it is but little damage to the tree. That 

 is a little in excess of your kind of pruning, but in that region of the 

 country, winter pruning of the peach tree, or late fall, is sure destruction 

 to the branch or tree that is pruned. 



Mr. Weed: I merely ask for information. I will state that my orchard 

 is on high ground, and is exposed to the lake, and my orchard is broken 

 down a great deal. I have failed to notice any material damage from 

 it. As regards a man's leg, of course, if it should be broken off, and he 

 should survive, he would get more strength in the other leg, anyhow, 

 and it is the same with a tree. 



Mr. Ramsdell : There is another difference in our region. Our ground 

 does not freeze in winter, the snow keeps it from freezing, so that roots 

 are in moist, unfrozen ground all the time. That may make some differ- 

 ence, as compared to other places where the ground freezes, and there 

 is no circulation of sap. 



Mr. Taylor: I have only a word on this question. It is not many years 

 ago since, I think in a meeting of this society, I heard very strongly 

 advocated by some men that June pruning of the apple was the best, 

 because the new growth would soon cover where the limb was removed. 

 I have found that that time of year for pruning was more fatal than 

 any other time that I could trim an apple tree. I have looked at some 

 apple trees trimmed in November, thoroughly trimmed, and I have never 

 seen any ill results from it. In fact, they have done as well as those 

 pruned in any other time of year that I could name. I have been in the 

 habit, for a number of years, in order to give my men work through the 

 winter, of trimming my peach orchard through the winter whenever the 

 weather was suitable; that is, sufficiently mild for a man to work with 

 ordinary winter wraps, and I have never seen a tree damaged by winter 

 pruning in my peach orchard, young or old; and I see no evil results from 



