THE THEORY OF PRUNING. 



ON THE THEORY OF PRUNING— No. 4. 



BY L. YOUNG, SPRINGDALE, KY. 



Dear Sir — Before closing these numbers by a few short comments upon the several pro- 

 cesses of pruning, listed under the head of the second class, I have determined to make a 

 few desultory remarks touching those external evidences, which, in practice, the operator 

 should recognise as indications suggestive of a particular process in its class above others, 

 or as symptoms, which, as violent or gentle in character, are more or less abiding, of delay 

 in the application of the knife. 



However much the success of the unskilful and of the negligent, may seem at war with 

 such a proposition, still I hold it to be true, that every stroke of the knife, every rubbing 

 off of a leaf or bud, exerts its influence for evil or for good, and that he who prunes with- 

 out object, or who, attempting to accomplish some design, is not assured that the cut he 

 is making will accomplish such design, is employed in an exercise quite as likely to result 

 in mischief, as in advantage. French philosophy and French skill, have brought a know- 

 ledge of those rules of practice to a high degree of advancement, in so much that many of 

 their specimen trees, viewed as artistic productions, excite the admiration of all beholders. 

 It is a source of surprise to witness with what passive obedience they submit to be mould- 

 ed into form, by the will of the trainer, and how, at the same time, the operator can ex- 

 ercise such rigid constraint over the form of his trees, and yet preserve their general 

 health. 



Here, however, is a fundamental rule of the French school, endorsed by high Anglo- 

 Saxon authority, which if not a paradox, is certainly to be received as true in a much 

 more limited sense than that set forth in the books — it is this, that "in all trees, and 

 under whatsoever form, the branches of the most vigorous parts should be cut short, and 

 those of the weak parts long," in order that the greater surface of leaves produced by the 

 numerous buds of the weaker branches may attract more sap, and thus produce a more 

 vigorous growth! This, it will be perceived from the reasoning, is a winter or spring ope- 

 ration. In about the year 1840, I recollect seeing a lot of pear trees headed back — whilst 

 at the same time their roots were treated with a dressing of manure well spaded in. This 

 treatment was applied as a remedy for feebleness of habit, the result of over production, 

 and at the end of five or six years the amputated trees had grown larger than when head- 

 ed back. One of them, a Red Bergamot, had, indeed, become barren from over lux- 

 uriance; here and there, only a branch was seen, sufSciently fruitful, so that here, if ever, 

 one would have thought, was a case for the application of this French rule. Abundant 

 space around several of these branches, was formed by cutting out the neighboring parts, 

 and the whole system of buds left to the feeble branches, with free space for enlargement. 

 At the end of two years, however, the beariilg branches remained stationary, whilst the 

 vacated space was re-filled with shoots more nurserj'-like and unproductive than those re- 

 moved. I believe, as has been stated in a former number, that whenever fruit-buds have 

 acquired control of the sap, by seizing upon the extremities, which are commanding points 

 in the system of circulation, that shortening-in is the only means of restoring the wood 

 system to active development — and that in this case, and at this season of the year, which 

 is the season of rest, the proper remedies were shorteniug-in for the feeble branches, and 

 bending down for the too vigorous. For the same reason, that is, its tendency to cripple 

 the energies of the wood system, I cannot but dissent from the implied doctrine of the 

 books, that bearing its crops "principally at the extremities of the branches" is one of 



