STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 155 



the tree, it has to dry out through the bark; and the wood will rot 

 before it will dry. There is uo doubt but that trees cut during the 

 month of August will make much more durable posts than if cut at 

 any other time in the year. 



Mr. Whipple. We are at the cooper business, and I know from 

 experience in that that there is only one month in the twelve when it 

 is safe to cut hickory whip-poles and have them last when they are 

 put on the barrel, and that is in the dead of winter. Then they never 

 powder-post. 



Mr. Pearce. I think that is explained by the fact that in the dead 

 of winter there is no sugar in the trees. When the sap starts it forms 

 a starch or sugar, and the worm works in the wood for that. There is 

 a time in the winter when this starch or sap is chrystalized, and there 

 is no sugar about it. 



Mr. Sias. Several years ago I saw, about a hundred apples trees 

 girdled, I think some time in June; there were trees probably six to 

 eight inches in diameter, and a foot or more of bark was stripped ojBf 

 clear around. It was done to make them bear early. They were 

 Baldwins and they usually bear ver}'^ late. I saw the orchard some 

 years afterwards and I noticed that it dwarfed the trees, but they came 

 into bearing several years sooner. I was talking with the proprietor 

 of the orchard about it and he seemed to think it paid. 



Mr. Pearce. There is a time about the 20th of June, when if you 

 strip the bark clean off, from the ground up, in twenty-four hours 

 there will be an entirely new bark. At that time the sap is just like 

 glue. It is perfectly safe and is frequentlj'^ practised in Ohio. 



Mr. Sias. I don't know as that is dangerous, but ray impression is 

 that it would kill my trees. My grounds are high and my trees require 

 a moist atmosphere. Here it is so much drier that I believe girdling 

 would kill the tree. 



Mr. Cutler. I would move as the sense of this Society that the 

 best and safest time to prune is before the sap starts in the spring, 

 after the cold weather of winter is past. 



Mr. Kellogg. I would suggest that there is quite a different opinion 

 as to when the sap starts. Pruning, I think, should be done pretty 

 early in the spring; it is belter not to let it be too late; the sap starts 

 before the frost is out. 



The motion was adopted. 



Mr. Gaylord said he wished to find out in some way the youngest 

 man in the house, as he had a curiosity to know how many young 

 men were interested in horticulture. 



