224 THE YOUNG 



planted some red cedars for a hedge fence, and I place them 

 thirty inches apart, believing that at that distance they will make 

 a better hedge than if set any closer to each other. 



PHILOSOPHY OF PRUNING. 



301. Why do we prune trees and plants? Trees and plants 

 are pruned for several reasons. They are pruned sometimes for 

 the purpose of removing the dead branches, and sometimes to 

 make a tree grow higher, and sometimes to make it grow broader 

 and lower ; and sometimes for the purpose of making the fruit 

 grow larger and fairer, by removing the redundant branches. If 

 the ends of all the limbs of a tree should be clipped off two or 

 three times during the growing season, and they were not allowed 

 to grow only so high and so far laterally, a tree would soon send 

 out sprouts or suckers all over the limbs, and in a few years a 

 tree would be a complete mat of brush. If all the topmost 

 branches are clipped off about as fast as the ends grow, the greatest 

 part of the sap will be driven or thrown into the lateral branches, 

 and they will shoot off horizontally with great rapidity. On the 

 contrary, if one bud or stem is allowed to shoot up in the centre of 

 the top, and all the others are kept back by clipping off the ends 

 as fast as they grow, there will be an unusual amount of sap flow 

 ing to this centre stem, and it will run up tall and slim. When 

 young fruit-trees are inclined to grow slim and tall, we clip off 

 the top buds, which will throw the sap into the lateral branches, 

 and the trees will begin to thicken. Although pruning fruit- 

 trees is not intimately connected with the subject of this section, 

 still I cannot forbear to notice, briefly, some things connected with 

 pruning trees. (See Figs. 125 and 150, TOOLS FOR PRUNING.) 



302. In forming a head to young fruit-trees, the young farmer 

 should aim to have one stem run up in the centre of the tree, and 

 then a system of two or three or four limbs extending horizontally 

 from the upright stem, about thirty or forty inches apart, clear to 

 the top of the tree. The first system of branches should be about 

 five or six feet from the ground. If they should be inclined to 



