WHEN TO PEUNE 



•RlM THE 20TI1 CENTURY FARMER. 



SOME one has said that the time to prune 

 is when your knife is sharp. It can 

 hardly be said that one time is as good as 

 another, yet we do not believe that the sea- 

 son of the year makes any great difference. 

 Each season has certain advantages and dis- 

 advantages. A wound made in June will 

 probably heal quicker than if made at any 

 other time, and for this reason June pruning 

 is generally recommended. 



We cannot entirely concur in this recom- 

 mendation, and for several reasons. In the 

 first place, one cannot see as well how to do 

 the work when the tree is covered with 

 leaves as when the limbs and twigs are bare. 

 Another objection is that growth is at its 

 height at this season, and the removal of a 

 part of the tree causes a shock by disturbing 

 the sap circulation. The injury thus pro- 

 duced is quite serious if a large amount of 

 wood is removed. 



Pruning is a deadening process, especially 

 when done during the growing season. An 

 injury which checks the growth of a tree 

 causes fruit buds to form. This is one of 

 the results of June pruning, as it is then the 

 buds are forming for next year's crop. 

 Pruning at this season is sometimes recom- 

 mended on this account. However, it is 

 seldom necessary to stimulate the produc- 

 tion of fruit buds. The problem generally 

 is how to get good fruit from those buds 

 which do form. June is one of the very 

 busiest months of the year, and, other things 

 being equal, a season when other work is 

 less pushing should be chosen. 



Winter is a good time for cutting out 

 dead limbs of large trees, but the weather is 

 usually too cold for the delicate operation of 

 pruning young trees. Pruning outside of 

 the growing season is objected to on the 

 ground that the wound dries out and does 

 not heal over readily. The cut edge of the 



bark dries back farther than if the wound is 

 made during rapid growth. 



Spring pruning sometimes results in the 

 sap exuding from the wound, similar to the 

 " bleeding " of a grape vine pruned during 

 the growing season. Pruning trees while 

 dormant sometimes causes a troublesome 

 growth of suckers or water sprouts. It 

 does not stimulate wood growth, as some 

 would have us believe, for the more a tree is 

 pruned the slower will it increase in size. 

 Where a part of a limb has been removed 

 the rest will grow faster than before for a 

 little while, but this increase in growth will 

 not make the limb a^s large as it would have 

 been if a part had not been removed by 

 pruning. 



Dormant pruning does not check growth 

 and deaden a tree as does early summer 

 pruning. Sap circulation depends upon 

 leaves, and when a portion of these are re- 

 moved a corresponding portion of the circu- 

 lation is checked and the shock is felt clear 

 to the roots. When a tree is dormant there 

 is no growth to check or circulation to dis- 

 arrange. The pruning simply leaves the 

 tree with a larger proportion of roots than 

 limbs, causing a more vigorous growth in 

 the limbs which remain. 



As was stated in the beginning, we do not 

 believe that one season is so very much bet- 

 ter than another for pruning. We have 

 endeavored to throw some light on the sub- 

 ject in order to help each' one to decide the 

 question for -himself. 



The ideal time to remove a limb is just as 

 soon after it starts as possible. Every limb 

 is first a bud, and it \v'ould be better to rub 

 off the bud than to allow the limb to grow 

 and then remove by cutting. However, it 

 is seldom practicable to prune in this way, 

 though it is possible to remove most limbs 

 which need removing Avhile quite small. 



