72 PRUNING IN GENERA!,. 



The same is nearly true with the art of pruning. 

 To insist that every tree must at certain times be 

 subjected to a surgical operation is to doubt the 

 wisdom of the Great Creator. 



In California there are trees more than 30 

 feet in diameter, and hundreds of feet high. In all 

 parts of the world, where conditions have been 

 favorable, great trees and woods grew long before 

 the advent of man. Indeed, man in his earlier, and 

 even more recent, conduct has acquired the name 

 of the great tree spoiler. How did these immense 

 woods and trees succeed so well without the assist- 

 ance of man to do the pruning ? How does the 

 natural wild grape, the wild cherry, plum, etc., 

 succeed in growing such loads of fruit without care 

 or assistance from the great intelligence of man? 



The forests will show us straight trunks without 

 limbs or blemish for 40 feet or more, yet there was 

 a time when these giants were but a few feet in 

 height, with limbs to the bottom, such as you have 

 seen upon the lawn. Where have these branches 

 gone ? They have been shaded to death. Nature 

 is extravagant in the use of seeds. She sows hun- 

 dreds where one can make a full sized specimen, 

 yet those that make a beginning are often of great 

 benefit in assisting others to attain that size. The 

 young plants come up thickly under the parent 

 tree, whose shade and protection they receive, as 

 well as that afforded by each other. Light is a 

 great stimulant of vegetable growth, and without 

 it the lower limbs die, and finally drop off, while 



