PLANTING. 



in reducing the size of lateral brandies. When these become too crowded, 

 or v, nine a disproportionate vigour of growth and 



increase, it is highly useful to reduce the number or s'/e of such over- 

 luxuriant branches. The chief point to be attended to in the operation is 

 that of dividing the branch at a point from whence a healthy secondary 

 ings, that it may become the leader to that branch. When 

 the :ro\vth only, and has no lateral shoots, as in 



(-fruits trained on walls, the division is made near to a strong healthy 

 bud, which will become the conducting shoot. 



For young forest-trees which require the branches to be regulated and 



balanced, so that one side may not have a disproportionate number or weight 



anchcs to the other, and for trees in hedge-rows whose lateral brandies 



id too far on either side, injuring the quick fence or the crops of the 



field, fore-shortening is the most useful mode of pruning. 



For non-reproductive trees, such as all the different species of the pine 

 or fir tribe of forest-trees, this mode of pruning is improper, as the 

 branch thus shortened does not produce a second shoot, but remains with 

 all the objectionable properties of a snag, to the great injury, in time, of the 

 quality of the timber. Where the purposes of evergreen masks, near the 

 ground, in the margins of plantations are desirable, the foreshortening of 

 the leading shoots of spruce firs, &c., is highly useful, as these trees do not 

 afterwards increase in height, but only extend laterally by thin side 

 branches. 



The most effectual pruning instruments are a strong knife, hook, saw, 



and chisel. For pruning elevated branches a small saw firmly fixed to a 



Pia, 12. long handle is highly useful (Jig. 12, ) ; 



ff a chisel, likewise furnished with a long 



handle (6), and driven by a hand mallet, 



r is very effective in taking off branches 



close to the stem or bole, in circum- 

 stances where the saw cannot be freely 

 used from the upright direction of the 



branch, or the situation of the adjoining branches. Such are the manuals 

 I e-t-pruning. It may be justly said that in no one process of the 

 culture of forest-trees is a just knowledge of vegetable physiology, or that 

 of the structure and functions of the organs of vegetable life of more 

 importance than in this one of pruning, which directly and especially 

 applies to the assisting and directing, as well as the checking, of these 

 functions in the production of wood as in forest-trees, and in that as well 

 as of flowers and fruit in garden-trees. Some of the leading points of 

 vegetable physiology which bear directly on the practice of pruning, have 

 been mentioned in Chapter III., and full details may be obtained in the 

 work there cited. 



A timber tree, as before observed, is valued for the length, straightness, 

 -olidity of its stem. .Judicious pruning tends greatly to assist nature 

 in the formation of the stem in this perfect state. In natural forests, boles 

 or s 1 . g properties of the most valuable kind are found, where 



no pruning, trenching, or any other process of culture ever was applied 

 tot! of the trees. It should not, however, be concluded from 



this circumstance that these processes are of little value. If we examine 

 the growth of trees in this climate, when left to the unassisted efforts of nature 

 by t! t of pruning and thinning, we find that but a small number 



only, on any given space of planted ground, attain to perfect maturity, com- 

 which never ai.i\c at imy value but for fuel. The like results, 

 though varying according to local advantages, are exhibited in the produce 



