REPORTS OF LOCAL SOCIETIES. 371 



growing apples, nor will they fall until we gather them. I have adopted 

 a different plan of pruning. When a limb interferes or crosses another 

 limb I don't always cut that off close to the trunk or main limb, I cut 

 one or two or three feet from one or the other of the interfering limbs, 

 owing to how it comes in contact with other limbs. Always leave some 

 branches growing out of upright limbs, or at least a few buds even 

 though they are no longer than four to six inches ; but leave them as 

 long as possible, so long as they do not come in contact with other 

 limbs. It is said the leaves are the lungs of the trees. l!fow 

 these buds yoh leave on these short limbs will be lungs for that part 

 of the tree. By this we avoid having six or eight feet without a leaf 

 or lungs, which, I believe, is very injurious to the tree and fruit. I be- 

 lieve we should prune our trees so as to throw the bearing wood as 

 close to the body of the tree as possible, and we can gather the fruit 

 •easier and in less time, and not let the limbs grow out from the tree 

 fifteen or twenty feet and then only a little bunch at the end for the 

 fruit. I believe the ends of long limbs should be cut off and throw 

 the fruit near the strength of the tree. Cut more, outside and not so 

 much inside, and let the sun and light in by thinning the outside. When 

 these long limbs get full of apples they bend all out of shape, and often 

 break. They say if you bend "osage orange," or hedge, without cut- 

 ting it will die because the sap can't flow through. If it has such an 

 effect on hedge, which clings to hfe more than any other timber we 

 have, why, then, should it not have the same effect on a limb of apples 

 that is bent equally as much as the hedge, with a great lot of fruit be- 

 yond this bend or pressure. More than that, the heavy winds twist 

 this limb, already strained to its utmost, in many cases twisting the 

 bark loose, and it takes this tree years to recruit again and it never 

 will come altogether out of its crooked and twisted shape. Then would 

 it not be better to cut the limbs back shorter and let the sun in from 

 the outside. We all know the fruit on such a bent or strained limb is 

 both small and tasteless. Some say nature wiU prune our fruit trees 

 for us ; others say they don't need pruning. This, I think, is a mistake. 

 I don't think God intended us to have this good fruit in any such a lazy 

 Avay. God created Adam and placed him in the Garden of Eden to 

 dress it, the fruit thereof to be his meat. It seems this much he was 

 commanded to do before the fall of Adam and Eve. By their trans- 

 gression for eating the forbidden fruit it makes this dressing or prun- 

 ning more laborious to us, as God says, "cursed is the ground, for thy 

 sake, in sorrow sbalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life ; thorns also 

 and thistles shall it bring forth to thee ; thou shalt eat the herb of the 



