SUI^r^rER PINCHING. 159 



plants, or tlioso of a single season's growth, as shown 

 in Fio'. 29. 



o 



SUMMER PINCHING. 



This process consists in checking the growing shoot 

 during summer, either by the thumb and linger or the 

 knife. Sometimes the soft terminal tuft of leaves 

 is pinched entirely off, sometimes a considerable por- 

 tion of the shoot is cut away, and occasionally they 

 are simply fractured, and left hanging. 



This labor may be performed from the first break- 

 ing of the bud to the middle of July, the time for its 

 performance being governed by the need for shaping 

 the tree. 



As before stated, the perfect formation of a pyramid 

 is commenced in the nursery. The plant budded the 

 previous year should stand at sufficient distance from 

 its fellows to allow its branches to radiate from the 

 ground, for a foot on either side, without interference 

 from them. ISTear the middle of July, the terminal 

 bud should be pinched off as at Fig. 35. The wood, 

 now in its succulent condition, heals over at once, and 

 no scar remains. 



By the loss of the terminal bud, the sap is dis- 

 tributed to the lower buds, and if, as usually occurs, 

 radial shoots do not push out, the former are strength- 

 ened sufficiently to form strong shoots during tlie next 

 season. Tlie tree, if well grown, is, at the end of the 

 first season, fully equal, for forming a pyramid, to 

 the one exhibited at Fig. 3(3. By a regular system of 

 summer pinching to restrain undue vigor of some of 

 the shoots, no great interference with its organism 

 need occur to preserve the pyramidal shape tlirougli 



