ORCHARD PRUNING. 3 1 



is young, bring it into a handsome shape and order, and when it 

 comes to bear fruit forbear pruning, unless in case of broken, or 

 such broughs as grow cross, or gall and fret others." Mortimer gives 

 similar advice and adds "thin most of the outmost branches, or 

 where they are thickest." Thomas Andrew Knight also lays great 

 stress on judicious pruning, for he did not fail to observe the injury 

 done in the Orchards from the wholesale lopping off of great 

 branches. The scar does not get covered, it decays, and the tree 

 becomes hollow and is broken off by the wind, or split down the 

 middle ; and the term of its natural life is materially shortened ; 

 and yet it is not difficult to remove large branches without injury, if 

 it is properly done. 



The late Mr. Chandos Wren Hoskinsin a paper on "Pruning" 

 in theWoolhope Club's Transactions for 1867, has so well explained 

 the true principles on which Pruning should be done, that a short 

 abstract of his paper will be useful. 



" The trunk of a tree is fed by its branches, just as a river is 

 fed by its tributaries. It is not nourished by the sap taken up by 

 the roots from the soil, until it has been acted upon by the atmos- 

 phere in the leaves ; and thus its growth is downward from the 

 foliage, and not upwards from the roots. Every branch of a tree has 

 smaller branches of its own, and is in fact to them a tree. Now, 

 supposing a branch to be condemned, instead of proceeding by 

 capital punishment (which admit of no repentance except to the 

 inflictor), the humane process is this. Select a branchlet which 

 happens to grow in the most favourable direction, and at the point 

 where it springs, cut off the main branch obliquely in the direction 

 of the growing branchlet, undercutting at first to prevent spaltering, 

 and prune the wound as much as possible into symmetry with the 

 direction of the new leader. In another year or two serve the new 

 leader in the same way, and the process may be repeated if requisite. 

 The result is this. The growth of the original condemned branch is 

 entirely stopped, without its being itself killed, and as the trunk of 

 the tree increases, its size gets less in proportion, and may generally 

 in a few years be moved entirely without injury, or eye sore, close 

 to the stem, that is to say, when the proportionate size of the scar to 

 the stem is such, that it will heal perfectly in two or three summers." 



