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The Canadian Horticultimil 



Vol. XXXV 



MAY, 1912 



No. 5 



How Shall I Prune? 



Prof. E. M. Straight, MacDonald College, Que. 



HOW shall I prune? The question 

 has been asked over and over again, 

 and answered as many times ; but 

 seldom answered twice in the same way. 

 The great amount of perplexing detail, 

 and the mixing of different pruning sys- 



An upright grower. Should have been 

 headed back. 



terns have led to such a confusion in 

 pruning practice that many growers do 

 not prune. Other would-be experts at- 

 tack trees as if they thought that some 

 "cussedness" existed somewhere within 

 the tree and that it must be got rid of 

 by means of the saw and the pruning 

 shears, and so they cut and saw. They 

 could do the work with eyes closed, and 

 do it just as well. This reckless prun- 

 ing and its dismal failure have forced 

 other men to abandon all pruning en- 

 deavour and so the trees grow as best 

 they may. 



The first important thing for the 

 grower to do is to form an ideal. By 

 that I mean, let him choose that system 

 of pruning which suits him best and stand 

 by it. After having started off in any 

 one direction he cannot afford to change 

 to any other. Two leading systems are 

 recognized, one being the open-headed 



and the other the centre-shoot system. 

 They both have their advantages and dis- 

 advantages. Personally, I prefer the 

 open-headed system ; hence this article 

 will treat on that system only. If the 

 grower favors some other method and 

 intends to follow that, he should not read 

 this article, for it will only lead to con- 

 fusion. 



When you receive your trees from the 

 nursery, it is evident that they have much 

 less root than they had when growing 

 there. Every care may have been exer- 

 cised in the digging, yet the greater part 

 of the roots are left in the ground, and it 

 is better so. While the young tree was 

 in the nursery rov/ a balance existed be- 



A (hort trunk and open centre. Pruning to 



outside laterals would have produced 



a better shaped head. 



tween the root system and the top of the 

 tree — both increased together ; but when 

 the root area was shortened in digging 

 we must shorten the part above ground 

 to maintain the balance. Many growers 

 take off all branches, leaving nothing but 

 a whip. This is not necessary and not 

 w!. 0. Figure number one shows how the 

 root growth is affected by transplanting. 

 If a few desirable branches are left the 



young tree may be started off in the way 

 it should go, better then than at other 

 times. These branches should not be 

 numerous and should be shortened. It 

 is important to remember that the prun- 

 ing of the top should be somewhat more 

 severe than has been the pruning of the 

 roots, because the demand for water 

 which is made by the growing parts can- 

 not be so successfully met by a newly 

 transplanted tree as by one thoroughly 

 established. I am not in favor of much 

 root pruning. All mangled roots should 

 be removed and all broken roots cut 

 back into fresh tissue, as new roots arise 

 more readily from clean cut surfaces. 



THE HEIGHT OP PRUNE 



The locality in which you live will de- 

 termine to a large extent the height of 

 the first branch from the ground. The 

 tendency among growers is to get the 

 head nearer and nearer the ground ; and 

 there are many advantages arising from 

 this system ; but we must not fail to count 

 the cost. In Quebec and the Maritime 

 Provinces, where the snowfall is heavy, 

 if the head is very low down you will lose 

 it entirely. I have seen trees two years 

 after planting stripped to a whip as the 

 snow subsided in the spring. I think it 

 is not safe to form a head lower than' 

 thirty inches in these provinces. 





Not a bad type. It needs some thinning. 



