DIFFERENT METHODS OF PETJNING. 49 



subjected to an over-reduction of the vital functions. Each indivi- 

 dual tree is enabled to participate in the advantages that are to be 

 derived from equal exposure to the influences of solar light and 

 heat. Brought up under these conditions, there is a sufficiency 

 of light admitted equally all round each tree; consequently they 

 will grow faster, and for a much greater length of time, without 

 unduly pressing on each other, than if left without any pruning 

 Avhatever. Four years since an ornamental plantation, composed 

 chiefly of lime trees, horse chestnuts, sycamores, and maples, planted 

 about 9 feet apart, came under our observation. They had been 

 ten years planted; and as it was the intention of the party who was 

 entrusted with the rearing of these trees to produce an ornamental 

 tree without any pruning whatever, not a branch had been touched. 

 Consequently most of the trees had several contending tops, and the 

 whole of them were of a wide-spread and very branchy habit; so 

 much so, that many of them were pressing on each other. These 

 trees were cautiously foreshortened in 1869, and in the springs of 

 1870 and 1871 they received a slight pruning, just sufficient to keep 

 them to one leading top, and restrain the strongest of the side 

 branches, so that they might be very gradually brought into a 

 shapely, but natural and ornamental appearance. This has now 

 been to a great extent accomplished, and the trees all the time kept 

 in a rapid growing state; and if they are now judiciously cared for, 

 it will be some years before any thinning is required. And we are 

 much deceived if they do not ultimately become very stately and 

 ornamental trees. Believing that the idea of rearing these trees, 

 whether for ornament or profit, without any pruning whatever, was 

 utterly absurd, and wishing to prove it, we left a few unpruned, 

 and as yet they have made little progress in the way of becoming 

 anything like trees; in fact, we anticipate that they will become 

 nothing more than huge bushes, unsightly in appearance and un- 

 profitable as a crop. We might give more examples illustrative of 

 the defectiveness of nature's pruning as compared with foreshorten- 

 ing; but we forbear, believing that we have said sufficient to 

 prove the advantages of foreshortening. And to show that when 

 this system of pruning is adopted in preference to nature's, those 

 evils that alike follow over-crowding and over-thinning are averted. 

 We have yet to consider the method of "snag pruning" — i.e., 

 cutting over the branch from a few inches to about a foot from the 

 stem. The effects of this method on the energies of the tree are 

 similar to those that follow close pruning, the rate of growth is 



