210 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Started an unusually vigorous growth. Then later there came on a 

 severe drouth, and a large number of those trees died, and a large 

 number of them died in the tops. From my observation I argued 

 like this : The excessive moisture in April and May forced them 

 evidently, and was preparing them for a very large growth, when 

 the drouth coming on shut off the food supply, and they were not 

 able to perfect the work they had set out to do, and so they died. 

 For the same reason : Up on a hill from which earth had been sold 

 to the city for grading purposes they had cut away a corner and 

 left a large soft maple tree standing. They had taken away more 

 than three-fourths of the earth from under it, and still that tree 

 lived. They had taken away so much earth that it was leaning 

 over to some extent, but it lived and was not injured by lack of 

 moisture. There is a lesson to be learned in connection with 

 these facts which I have stated. What caused those other trees 

 to die? Now, as I said before, a tree starts out early in March to 

 prepare for the season's growth, and if you gO' to work and cut off a 

 lot of the limbs it has not the use of that food that has been 

 stored up, and that work that has already begun there, a good deal 

 of that work, will go into water sprouts. That is the result you 

 get by cutting off the limbs at that season. But if you take off 

 those limbs in the fall, when nature rests, then in the spring she 

 knows what there is to do and makes provision accordingly. These 

 are some of the reasons, based on my judgment and observation, 

 for September and October pruning. 



Capt. A. H. Reed : I believe Mr. Brand has got the right 

 theory in regard to the trimming of trees. Two years ago in a 

 paper which I read before the society I stated that the time for trim- 

 ming trees should commence in September or October, when the 

 sap commenced falling. I was sat down upon by most of the 

 members then present who expressed an opinion about the matter, 

 but the fact remains, and by experiment you will find it to be true, 

 that the fall of the year is the season when trees should be trimmed 

 in order to gain the best results. I understand they follow that 

 practice in the great apple state of Michigan, trimming their trees 

 in the fall. My experience and observation goes to show that 

 when you go to work and cut off limbs from trees in the spring 

 of the year, when the sap is rising, that the wound turns black; 

 but, on the other hand,' when you cut them off in September or 

 October the cut becomes hard and heals over nicely and no bad re- 

 sults whatever follow. 



I commenced experimenting in January last. Each month I 

 trimmed a certain number of trees. I followed up that practice, 

 but I have not examined the result closely enough to tell just what 

 the effect of each month's trimming has shown, but I am satisfied 

 in my own mind that the limbs of apple trees of any size ought 

 to be trimmed in the month of September or October. Perhaps it 

 will aid the bearing of the tree to cut them out in March or April, 

 but if I were to trim them then I would leave them with enough 

 wood a little above the connecting point, so that they could after- 



