The Canadian Horticulturist. 249 



PRUNING HEDGES. 



HEN pruning hedges, as well as in the pruning of other 

 trees, it should not be forgotten that the ultimate effect 

 of all pruning is to weaken the growth power of the 

 plants. This is evident to any one who will consider 

 the effect of pruning a hedge. Though the plants may 

 ^^,^^mm^^mr^9- i. ^^ ^° years old, it is seldom that the plants in the hedge 

 *^^ ^ ^ rows will have stems thicker than one's wrist ; while if 



the same plants had been suffered to grow up as trees they would have trunks 

 of three or four feet in circumference. Applying this principle to pruning in 

 general, no young tree should be touched for some years unless with the evident 

 object of keeping it small and dwarf; and in the treatment of hedges especially, 

 the young plants set out should not be touched until they have acquired great 

 vigor of growth. In setting a hedge of osage orange, for instance, the plants 

 should be suffered to grow as they will, for two or three years, according to the 

 richness of the soil and the vigor of growth ; and after they have achieved this 

 extra vigor, they should then be cut to the ground in the winter season. The 

 result of this is that very strong and vigorous shoots then push up, and these 

 can be trimmed into the form desired, during the next growing season ; and for 

 hedge purposes, the form should always be that of a truncate cone. The object 

 of this form of training, is to allow every leaf to have the full benefit of sunlight, 

 which they cannot have when the hedges are trimmed perfectly upright and flat 

 on the top. Hedges trimmed in this latter way, soon get bare of foliage at the 

 base; while hedges trained conically, always retain their strength and foliage 

 clear to the ground. In pruning trees, the same principle prevails. If a large 

 tree be headed off severely, it seems to throw out a few very strong branches ; 

 and the impression might be given that this was an evidence of the strength of 

 vital power ; but the reason for this strength is that the new branches with their 

 numerous leaves avail themselves temporarily of the large supply of food stored 

 up in the trunk. But these same leaves have to store up food for another year, 

 and it is impossible for the comparatively few leaves — no matter how strong 

 these shoots may be — to furnish sufficient food for the enormous number of 

 cells which require nutrition. As a consequence, numbers die of absolute 

 starvation, and rotten portions .appear in every direction. Large trees so 

 pruned, consequently, soon become hollow from decay, and very often die 

 within a few years ; or ; if they live at all, are never healthy. Lengthy chapters 

 might be written on the minute details of pruning, without telling more of 

 general principles than has been given in this paragraph. — Meehans' Monthly. 



