PRUNING. 2ir- 



ward be cut down to the trunk, if necessary, and get good, clean 

 wood where it had not rotted. 



There is a neighbor of mine who has practiced girdUng of 

 limbs for some time. He tells me that this last spring he girdled 

 some limbs, and that those limbs which he girdled bore apples, 

 but no other part of the tree had any fruit. He cut a circle about 

 one-sixteenth of an inch wide clear around the limb and took the 

 bark out without any injury to the limb, and those limbs that were 

 so girdled bore profusely, while no other part of the tree bore fruit. 

 I saw neighbors of his who had seen those trees, and they said it 

 was a fact, the limbs that had been girdled had an abundant crop 

 of apples, while the part of the tree that had not been girdled did 

 not bear any fruit. 



Mr. A. Brackett : Upon this pruning question there is a great 

 difference of opinion. If you girdle a tree as this gentleman speaks 

 of, if you girdle that tree in June the wound will heal over and 

 the tree will live, but if you girdle it in September it will kill 

 the limb. I think the wound of a tree trimmed in the spring will 

 have a better chance to heal over than if it were trimmed in the 

 summer. When I lived in Iowa, when a mere boy, Mr. Smith, of 

 Des Moines, who had grown gray in the orchard business, told me 

 one day in answer to a question I put to him as to the best time to 

 trim trees, "The best time to prune trees is when your knife is 

 sharp." I have followed that rule ever since, regardless of the 

 time of the year, and I have always had good success; I have 

 never experienced any bad results from that method. 



Mr. Van Ness : I have little experience in trimming trees, 

 but I know something about tapping trees in the spring. My 

 father tapped his maple trees in the spring and made them produce 

 as long as possible, but a few years ago we found the trees were 

 dying in the top. I asked him why those trees were dying. He 

 said it was because we were taking the sap out of the tree. He 

 said if we cut a tree in the spring it would bleed, which would 

 weaken it, but if cut in the fall it would lose no sap, and conse- 

 quently there would be no harm done. So- judging from my 

 observation and what experience I have had I am convinced that 

 the proper time to trim trees is in the fall. When you tap trees 

 in the spring and make just a slight cut in the bark you will notice 

 how profusely it bleeds, and that sap that escapes is necessary to 

 support the life oi the tree, and the more you take away the more 

 the vitality of the tree is impaired ; the tree cannot do the work 

 that it ought to do. I think the spring is the wrong time to prune. 

 If it is a young tree from which you cut the limbs it will not bleed 

 so much. At the experiment station a few years ago I saw them 

 pruning in June. I said to them, "Is this the proper time of the 

 year to prune trees?" They said, "There is no particular time; 

 any time when your knife is sharp." I said, "That is a matter 

 that is firmly impressed upon my mind, never to prune a tree when 

 it will bleed much, but let it go and do the work at a certain sea- 

 son of the year when it will not bleed." 



Mr. Emil Sahler : Now, in regard to that point about having 

 the knife sharp. I find that my knife is sharp the year around. I 



