THE KANSAS CHERRY. 33 



filled. The hole should be filled with fine mellow earth, carefully packed 

 and tramped until the roots are well covered, and the earth should 

 then be piled up a little to allow for settling, but the upper two or 

 three inches should not be packed. Greater care is required in plant- 

 ing the cherry than any other variety of fruit I have ever tried. 



I do but little pruning at time of planting ; I prefer to plant small 

 trees that need no pruning. In March of the following year the trees 

 should be gone over and pruned to shape the head; clip in the ends 

 of the long shoots, keep the heads round, in the case of trees that grow 

 like the Kichmond, or conical with trees of more upright growth, and 

 If the branches have not started thick enough to make a good head, 

 cut back heavy enough to make them thicker, the aim being to shape 

 the head as near as possible to the shape of some well-grown tree of 

 the variety. The following March, when the trees are two years 

 planted, they should again be gone over and pruned with the same 

 end in view, that is, to make a well-shaped head, cutting out cross- 

 limbs, heading back too rampant growing branches ; and where a 

 branch crooks or grows ia a wrong direction it can usually be reme- 

 died, if taken in time, by cutting back to a bud that will start and 

 carry its growth in the right direction. The third year the same 

 treatment should be given, after which but little pruning will be 

 needed, except to remove dead limbs, but these should not and, with 

 proper treatment, will not be abundant for many years. In pruning 

 the cherry, like all other trees, no fixed rule can be made that will 

 apply to all, as no two trees are exactly alike ; but the cherry being 

 one of the most .perverse of all fruit-trees, it is best for the pruner to 

 have a well-grown, full-sized specimen of the variety he is pruning in 

 his mind ; this gives him the natural shape of the tree, and he should 

 so train his young sprout as to cause it to assume its natural shaj)e 

 and make a well-formed tree of its kind. 



One of our modern horticulturists has said that the shape of the 

 tree makes little difference with its bearing qualities and that each 

 grower may form his own ideal shape of tree, and i^rune accordingly ; 

 but in i^runing the cherry I would suggest that the pruner should 

 have many ideals, as it is much more easy to make an ideal to fit a 

 particular tree than it is to make all cherry trees grow to fit a parti- 

 cular ideal. No man should undertake to prune and sliape the head 

 of any young tree until he has studied the bud arrangement and grow- 

 ing characteristics of the family of trees to which it belongs, as the 

 shaping of the top depends materially on the position of the upper 

 bud left after the branch is clipped ; and in shaping the heads of 

 young trees particular attention should be given that the cut is made 



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