304 ON THE CULTURE OF THE TREE ROSE. 



generally on hedges in much worse plight than the shoots which 

 have been subsequently formed at its base. This tendency of 

 the dog-rose to break out below, must be checked in two ways ; 

 the first, by destroying every sucker and shoot as it starts, and 

 the second, by finding full work for the sap above, and by giving 

 it a free passage. 



If then, in cutting the top of a tree at pruning time, you leave a 

 couple of buds on every shoot of last year's growth, or three at 

 most upon a very strong one, there will be quite enough to oc- 

 cupy the sap, keep the tree within bounds, make it much hand- 

 somer, save tbe sap the expence of maintaining old wood, and 

 give it a free course. If there be more sap than enough, a fresh 

 shoot will likely enough start from the crown of the graft, or the 

 rings upon the first year's shoot, and increase the head of the 

 tree, as well as bring you back with new wood nearer home — 

 a matter always desirable as tending to keep the head from 

 straggling. 



Cutting to the lowest buds always leaves the sap with but a 

 short channel to pass through, strengthens the branch below the 

 buds, and is every way beneficial, if care be taken that a suffi- 

 ciency be left to occupy ihe sap. 



If the tree be not pruned at all, it will lose its shape entirely in 

 a single year, afford little or no bloom the next, and eventually 

 straggle to death. 



Trimming the shoots has nothing essentially different in the 

 manner of execution to trimming the stock; in trimming to a bud, 

 barely the thickness of a sixpence should be left above the bud, 

 and the excision should form a slant about equal to that caused 

 by dividing a square from angle to angle : if more were left 

 above the bud, it would die down to the bud, and prevent the 

 bark from healing over the wound; jn general, the line of the 

 bud is the slant the knife should make it its passage through the 

 shoot. 



Cutting out old wood should always take place where it can ; 

 ihe desirable point being to keep near home, as it is called ; 

 when, therefore, your tree throws out a fresh and vigorous shoot, 

 close to the base of an old branch which has straggled too far from 

 the graft, cut out the old wood in March, close to its base, leaving 

 the young shoot to supply its place, and receive its nourishment. 

 This principle well applied, will always keep the trees in bounds • 

 .but as this requires judgment, and cannot well be explained in 



