250 PLAIN AND PLEASANT TALK 



elements with them are much below, and with us much 

 above par. In consequence, their trees have but a moderate 

 growth ; ours are inclined to excessive growth. 



Their whole system of open-culture, and wall-training is 

 founded upon the necessity of husbanding all their re 

 sources. To avail themselves of every particle of light, 

 they keep open the heads of their trees, so that the parsi 

 monious sunshine shall penetrate every part of the tree. 

 Let this be done with us, and there are many of our trees 

 that would be killed by the force of the sun s rays upon the 

 naked branches in a single season, or very much enfeebled. 

 For the same general reasons, the English reduce the quan 

 tity of bearing-wood, shortening a part or wholly cutting it 

 out, that the residue, having the whole energy of the tree 

 concentrated upon it, may perfect its fruit. Our difficulty 

 being an excess of vitality, this system of shortening and 

 cutting out, would cause the tree to send out suckers from 

 the root and trunk, and would fill the head of the tree with 

 rank water-shoots or gourmands. What would be thought 

 of the people of the torrid zone should they borrow their 

 customs of clothing from the practice of Greenland ? It 

 would be as rational as it is for orchardists, in a land whose 

 summers are long and of high temperature, to copy the 

 customs of a land whose summers are prodigal of fog and 

 rain, but penurious of heat and light. 



Except to remove dead, diseased or interfering branches, 

 do not cut at all. 



But if pruning is to be done, wait till after corn-planting. 

 The best time to prune is the time when healing will the 

 quickest follow cutting. This is not in early spring, but in 

 early summer. The elements from which new wood is pro 

 duced are not drawn from the rising sap, but from that 

 which descends between the bark and wood. This sap, 

 called true sap, is the upward sap after it has gone through 

 that chemical laboratory, the leaf. Each leaf is a chemical 

 contractor, doing up its part of the work of preparing sap 



