PRUNING AND PLANTING TREES. 295 



will need severe pruning again in order to secure the proper top. 

 If the top is too heavy cut out some of the branches and lessen 

 the number of branches, rather than cut the top off and leave the 

 stock exposed. I think that is much the better way, the more 

 successful way. Many of our farmers do not seem to understand 

 the difference between cutting back a tree and pruning it. 



Mr. Frank Yahnke: There is in this matter a good deal of 

 the principle of "pay your money and take your choice." A farmer 

 ought to understand how to plant a tree, how to trim and when to 

 trim. It is not reasonable to suppose that every tree can be 

 trimmed alike. A tree with many branches and the branches close 

 together, ought not to be pruned back, but the branches ought to 

 be cut out, whereas a tree with but a few branches that will stand 

 thickening, ought to be trimmed by shortening in, so as to increase 

 its branching. We ought to take notice of these things and under- 

 stand the nature of the tree. The main thing is to plant young 

 trees, and young in the top. If a surgeon has to take off a leg, he 

 does not cut an arm off also. Where we have to cut off roots of a 

 tree I do not think it is advisable to cut the limbs off too. The 

 planting of young trees cannot be advocated too much or too 

 strongly. When a tree gets to be three years old it is too old to be 

 transplanted successfully. I think a two-year-old tree is worth 

 fifty per cent more than a three-year-old tree, and seventy-five per 

 cent more than a four-year-old. You lose the greater part 

 of the roots of a three-year-old tree. If that tree is taken up at 

 two years old you can get most of the roots, and if they are well 

 packed and care is taken in shipping, and they are put in the 

 ground in the same condition in which they were dug, there will 

 not be a loss of one per cent. Thev should be set in the same 

 way that they stood in the nursery. Set the north side on the 

 north side and the south side on the south side in planting. Any- 

 body who has ever planted trees will know that the south side looks 

 redder and the north side greener. The tree has got different 

 wood on the north side from what it has on the south si-it, and 

 when you plant you must plant in the same way it stood before. 



Mr. O. M. Lord: I would like to know whether anybody has 

 ever paid any attention to that. 



Mr. C. M. Loring: I have not, but I thoroughly believe in it. 



Mr. Yahnke: I always practice it, and I scarcely ever lose 

 a tree. 



Mr. Seth Kenney : I would like to ask Mr. Loring whether 

 he practices trimming back the different kinds of evergreens? 



