Orchards— Pruning and Thinning. 



WITH several years close observation and experience, we have come to regard 

 late spring, and on into mid-summer, the most favorable season of the year for 

 pruning in this latitude — varying with the season north or south. After the tree is 

 warmed into new life from its winter rest, the sap in full flow, and the tree fairly in 

 leaf, the sooner a wound is made, the more readily and soundly will it close over with 

 a new growth of wood. If pruning be done, as much of it should be, at a time when 

 the bark slips, care should be taken against loosening it, or if loosened, or bruised, 

 to pare it off smooth. The facility with which the process of healing takes place and 

 goes on, depends materially upon the smoothness of the rim of the wound. 



Nothing like specific instruction or directions can be given in pruning. So it 

 appears to us, for we find no operation, in the care and growth of an orchard, that 

 taxes our judgment and skill more. To our mind, the subject can be spoken of only 

 in a general way — that every one who undertakes to properly prune a tree, must, in 

 the main, lean upon his own judgment. We would say, cut out smoothly all weak 

 and straggling branches, and all that appear likely to rub or otherwise seriously inter- 

 fere with their better fellows during the future growth of the tree. Take off all 

 water sprouts, wherever found, whether springing up from the roots of the tree or 

 out from the main trunk and branches. If trees are set very full of fruit, we do not 

 hesitate to remove some of it with the branches, which ought to be taken out. What 

 is left will be improved, both in size and quality. When branches, two inches or so, 

 are removed, the wound should receive a thin coating of waxen liquid that will 

 adhere and resist the effects of the weather. When pruning either orchard or 

 nursery trees, late in the fall, or in winter, for cions, or for any other object, we 

 invariably leave a stump of the limb or twig, an inch or more in length, to be shor- 

 tened in close to the main stem, at our usual time for pruning. If cut close when 

 the tvnee is in a semi-dormant state, the wood checks, the surrounding bark deadens 

 and protracts tae process of healing over. 



Time for Grape Grafting. — The California Agriculturist says, on the 

 authority of several experienced vine growers, that the most favorable time for 

 grafting the grape is when the leaves are started and the vines cease to bleed. 

 Grafted at this period of growth, it is claimed that the cion will start into growth 

 quicker and will be more likely to live than if the work be done earlier in the season. 

 The cions should be of the last season's growth and of well ripened wood. 

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