THE UNFRUITFUL TREE AND HOW TO CORRECT IT. 373 



When the tree is in a condition of rapid, vigorous growth 

 it is possible to check it, as the last speaker has indicated. I am 

 in hearty accord with the position he takes that it is better to 

 do more pruning in the dormant season (if you are pruning for 

 productiveness) than it is to prune during the growing season 

 in June. Why? Because the leaves which are put out in the 

 early part of the season are made, not out of the plant food that 

 the plant makes that same season, but they are made out of the 

 plant food that was made the previous season and was stored 

 away in the roots and all through the body, trunk and branches. 

 When it is dissolved in the sap in the spring then it comes out 

 into those fruit buds and leaf buds and furnishes them the ma- 

 terial out of which the tree could expand its leaves very rapidly. 



Those of you that have lived in a country where they make 

 maple sugar know that sometimes they get a run of sap in 

 February or March. What happens there is the changing over 

 of the food materials, which have been stored away in solid 

 forms, back into liquid forms, so that it can flow all through the 

 tree to any part where it may be needed for the development of 

 the leaf bud's or fruit buds. If you prune after the tree has 

 drawn upon all that reserve material to make its first leaves in 

 spring, then by cutting off those new leaves you cut off propor- 

 tionately more from the food factory of the tree than you do by 

 pruning in the dormant season. Why? Because if we prune in 

 the dormant season we are taking away a part of the top. Its 

 portion of the solid food which has been stored away in the roots 

 waiting for the spring demand remains so that the branches 

 which are left have that much extra supply of food material with 

 which to stimulate their growth. We know as a rule if we wish 

 to stimulate the growth of a branch we should prune it rather 

 short in the dormant season. 



But we shouldn't stimulate it into such rapid growth as to 

 overcome its tendency to bear fruit. We do not want to put it 

 in the condition of a very young tree by forcing an excessive 

 growth of vegetation. What is better is to stimulate slightly 

 the growth of the tree by pruning lightly in the dormant season. 



Pruning in summer, or rather the pruning in early summer, 

 just after the first leaves have come out, has a tendency, as we 

 know, to check the growth. In case you have a tree that is too 

 exuberant in its growth it is desirable, perhaps, to adopt that 

 method. There is no one rule you can use alike for all trees, for 



