STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 153 



you prune in August they will heal over that same fall. It is not safe 

 to prune late in the fall, or just before the winter. The cold seems to 

 penetrate at these points, and the result is that the wood will die around 

 those wounds and the sap will begin to run through, and the insects 

 will come in there or the worm and injure and destroy the tree. 



Mr. Latham. Mr. President, I have never tried pruning until recent- 

 ly. I made up my mind that I would prune my ntirsery stock in the 

 spring and so I went out when the top of the ground was frozen, and 

 pruned them with a sharp knife, so as to leave no scar or spot that 

 would not be covered with the growing bark. I made it a rule to trim 

 my orchard at the same time, although I have found it is safe to cut a 

 small branch at any time, if cut close to the tree. But in pruning 

 orchard trees, it is better to prune them in the spring before the sap 

 starts. The wood then dries over. If the wound is larger than a ten- 

 cent piece, I have always made it a practice to cover the wound with 

 some kind of salve, and I don't know as I have ever seen a bad place 

 on a tree from pruning, treated in that way. 



Mr. Pearce. I have observed that my graft cions sometimes rot at 

 the end. I graft a good deal. My cions are cut in the fall; I pack 

 them in saw-dust; I graft them in the spring of the year. I take a 

 healthy cion, and it is sound clear to the end; I take another apparent- 

 ly healthy cion and find it rotton one-third of the way out, while the 

 other is perfectly sound. Every man that has used grafts has found 

 that to be true, and I would like to ask if anyone can tell why it is? 



Mr. Gaylord. I have been experimenting some with apple trees for 

 a great many years on a small scale, and I will tell you that our Iowa 

 folks have come to the conclusion, the leading men all through our 

 state have come to the conclusion, that the best time to trim trees is 

 when the leaves begin to open, when they are as large as a ten-cent 

 piece. We have a man down in Iowa who declared that winter was 

 the best time to trim trees. He went out and trimmed a number when 

 the thermometer was twenty degrees below, and one of those trees 

 bled all summer long. 



T am well convinced that a knife should be used very little in this 

 Northwestern country. We never should graft a limb larger than my 

 thumb, and only a little at a time. Three or four grafts are sufficient 

 to commence with. 



Mr. Sias. I am still of the opinion that the Doctor is right. If 

 your trees are perfectly hardy, as he says, you can trim any time — any 

 season of the year. I also have trimmed considerable in September, 

 and I never have seen any bad results in pruning at that time. 



