1885.] ON PRUNING. Ill 



beauty, or an article of commercial value. This is specially true of 

 pruning operations which are either utilitarian or ornamental, the 

 production of fruit not being in the ordinary sense an object of such 

 handicraft. But the obtaining of good timber, together with grace 

 of form, may be accelerated by skilful pruning, which is simply 

 such regulation of the growth of the individual tree as to prevent 

 waste or misdirection of physiological energies in the production of 

 limbs neither graceful nor valuable. Though crooked timber, render- 

 ing the parent trunks commercially more valuable than the straight 

 variety, is often aimed at by pruning, the object to be attained is 

 the same. Whether it be the production of a straight upright 

 trunk or a tortuous one, or the development of trunk-like branches 

 which in mature trees are often of great value, there must be 

 the same careful husbanding of the energies of the tree, the same 

 focusing of its circulating sap in the direction desired, in order to 

 attain the best results in the shortest period of time. 



How TO PRUXE. — On this point there is great diversity of opinion 

 amongst practical men. Some believing in nature's efficacy as a 

 pruner, and ignoring or forgetting altogether the irregularity and 

 uncertain character of her operations, say, " Prune not at all. Leave 

 all to nature, and the result cannot fail to be good." ISTevertheless it 

 is often very bad, a fact always discovered when too late to mend 

 everything in connection with the case. The observer will learn 

 that nature as a pruner when left to herself is a failure and a fraud, 

 returning only shapeless hollow trunks and unmarketable timber 

 for the confidence reposed in her. Others rush to the opposite 

 extreme and whittle off the lateral branches continually, much as if 

 the sole object of arboriculture were the production of May -poles 

 and the destruction of the natural balance and symmetry of the tree 

 operated on. These also ultimately find the market value of their 

 timber an unremunerative quantity. And there is a third school, 

 which, while recognising the necessity for pruning, defer the opera- 

 tion till it is too late. They permit nature to have her own way 

 for many years unchecked ; the result being, for the most part, trees 

 more or less disfigured by accident, and the unrestrained tendency 

 to irregularity which is inevitable in a greater or less degree in all 

 kinds of trees. Operations are then begun wuth saw and chisel, but 

 it is too late. The immediate result is crippled trees, which become 

 a prey to premature decay caused directly by sheer dismemberment 

 and mutilation done in the name of pruning. Profitable results can 

 never accrue from such treatment. 



These practices are founded on ignorance or misconception of the 

 physiological laws of tree life. There is no understanding of the 

 intimate relations that subsist between root, stem, branch, and leaf, 



