.•2L2 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



have always been advocating the trimming or pruning of trees at 

 any time in the winter, but since I became acquainted with Uncle 

 Kenney I have changed my method. I did my pruning this year 

 at the same time that he does it, that is, the latter part of May 

 and the first part of June. He says if we trim our trees in the 

 winter season the frost is in the trunk, and when the sap rises it 

 will run out of the wound, which injures the tree. I had a tree 

 trimmer and always trimmed my trees in the winter time. On 

 some trees that I trimmed I noticed that the sap ran down a foot 

 or a foot and a half until it dried up, and two months later I dis- 

 covered that there was a large black spot extending down as far 

 as the sap had run, and to my utter surprise I saw that those 

 trees which had large limbs cut ofif broke off below and died as the 

 result of winter pruning. Then I followed Mr. Kenney's idea 

 and found after pruning that the sap did not run out, and after 

 cutting the limbs and waxing the wound over it gradually healed 

 over, and everything was O. K. 



Mr. Yahnke : This discussion reminds me of my neighbor who 

 had never been able to grow any cabbage. Another neighbor, a 

 Swede, said to him, "That is easy enough. Just get up three 

 Fridays before sunrise in succession, and you will have cabbage." 

 And so it is with this matter of pruning. It does not depend upon 

 the season in which the pruning is done at all, but it all lies in the 

 man who does it and whether he knows how to prune. I agree 

 with this gentleman when he advises that we should prune when 

 the knife is sharp. Anything that you can take off from a tree 

 with a jackknife will not injure the tree in the least at any time 

 of the year. 



Mr. Philips : That's right. You do get a thing right once in 

 a while. (Laughter.) 



Mr. Elliot : Would you advise large pruning at this season of 

 the year? 



Mr. Yahnke : No, I would not cut a large limb at any time ; 

 I would cut before it became large. 



Mr. Elliot: Many of our people have the idea that they must 

 do some pruning. They know nothing about it, but they have the 

 idea that they must cut something out. 



Mr. Yahnke: When you have got a little boy — and there are 

 lots of them in this country — you can train him when he is young 

 and make something of him, but when he gets to be as old as I am 

 you can't do anything with him. You can prune an old tree, of 

 course, but it will result in the same way that the doctor said 

 bleeding would affect his patient. In olden times they used to 

 bleed a great deal for almost everything. A doctor had a patient 

 who was very sick, and he was in a quandary to know what to do. 

 He said, "I don't know whether I ought to bleed him or not. If 

 I don't bleed him he will die, and if I do bleed him he will die 

 sure." (Laughter.) So it is with an old apple tree, if you don't 

 trim it it will die, and if you trim it it will die sure. (Applause.) 



Mr. Ferris (la.) : I do not believe it is a good thing for the idea 

 to go out from this society that excessive pruning should be practiced 



